Morgoth's Bane
by Gandalf the Beige
Summary: UndergradsTolkien. The main story in my series. With Quendi, Orcs and hungry Hobbits get involved, State U will never be quite the same, and neither will Nitz and Jesse. R&R, all flames will be donated to, or directed at, the Campaign for Equal Heights
1. Back to the Void

Hey there. I was just so psyched to get this fic started that I couldn't wait anymore. Here you shall read of Morgoths' Bane, and of her parents. "UnderGRADS" belongs to Pete Williams, LOTR and the Silmarillion belong to Tolkien, and Master Chalk is from Gormenghast. Now let us get underway. 

Rated PG-13 for an attempted suicide by funeral pyre, violence, semi-angst, drunkenness, mushiness and implied snugglebunnies.

Just to get it out in the open, I am a liberal catholic (Valarist by trade) and while I am pro birth control and pro-education, I am also pro-choice (with a bit of a residual Ick factor as to the... procedure). Prevention is one thing, the best really, but somethimes women get the short end of the stick (engages in long tirade about the economics affecting pregnant women). And as the Elves only breed every 500 years or so and every child takes something out of the mother, I would expect them to be quite receptive to the vague buzzwords of the pro-life cause (until the met the real nutters of the movement, that is) because of lack of experience in modern sociologicy. And what with Noldorin traditionalism, Marriage custom and the interference of the gods, political correctness can't always take its rightful place.

Most of all, never doubt the resourcefulness of Maiar whose jobs are on the line

Now in the Undergrads section.

* * *

**State U, Western NY State, April 16th, 11:24 PM, 2001 AD**

The howl had come.

Students, driven by some bestial and otherworldly urge, had begun screaming at he top of their lungs. The wave of sound traveled westward across campus from Chilton Hall, triggering more and morehowls in the night. None knew exactly how it started, but in coming years it would almost unanimously be remembered as an ill omen by all who knew what had really happened, a sign of impending doom and disaster.

Crazy as it may sound, this sound had a life of its own.

Hoping to outrun this howl was a lone, cloaked figure; clad in grey, with a long bundle wrapped in brown flannel. He had dreaded this sound for years without number. The _plan_ was for the male and female to dine together in her chambers, but when he had peeked in the window at Chilton hall, he had seen her talking with her brother, the man nowhere to be seen. He had then recalled overhearing earlier that they would be going to an apartment complex to check out a party, where the redhead had been.

The figure raced up the apartment steps, seeming to almost move through the half opened doors. The stairs seemed to be trying to hasten his ascent. 'Yes,' he thought to himself, 'things must be very bad indeed for the land itself to allow me to hasten. Mostly it tries to slow people down.' It should be said that this worlds geography was unusually stubborn in this respect, usually having almost no sense of narrative.

The door was open, and light streamed forth from inside, but this light was no comfort to the grey runner. Through the door was a party in full swing, and he began to search. He looked to the left and saw them. The man was wearing a blue denim cap with khaki bill, blue jacket, khaki pants, unknown shirt/sweater-vest combination, and sneakers. This was Parker Walsh, the one called Nitz ever since he had failed a sixth grade lice inspection.

But right now he was in a lip lock with the redhead, and though none here knew it, that kiss might mean the beginning of the end for all that was ever fair and free, the end result of misdirection and of sneering at the guiding hand of the heavens . Even though the strangers face was calm beneath his hooded cloak, he, for a moment, he could concieve a cold, cruel laugh in the depths of his mind, and felt a heart-wrenching sorrow for all those who would die and whose deaths would be in vain if he did not take action at this instant in all time.

So, with a calm born of ages, the stranger levelled the flannel bundle up to eye level... pointed the fat end at the pair...

...And fired.

* * *

Nitz could not believe his luck! First, Kimmy isn't leaving next year, and he had just found out that Mark, the Drama Major that Kimmy had been crushing on since she got here... was gay! She was his, like he had always wanted... right? So what was this nagging at the back of his mind, telling him that there was someplace that he should rather be? 

But for him, there was to be no choice this night. Kimmy pulled him into a kiss... and then a blinding light shot out from behind him, enveloping them both. Nitz felt first a searching, and then a pulling as the light began to drag something out of him. What was it? It felt like every stupid plan, every bit of seemingly unfounded devotion for Kimmy was being purged from his heart and his mind.

This removal, however, did not create emptiness. It was more like thick and musty drapes being ripped from a sunlit window, or a dustcover being thrown from an old master, or strangling mistletoe being pulled out of an oak. And why was there a shrieking? Then his entire world went blank, and his love for Kimmy Burton was finally no more.

* * *

The stranger watched as the light dissipated. The two young adults had been flung on the bed, a shield of light about them that would fade with the morning sun. There was also... _something_ where Nitz had been standing. It had a vague human outline, and had its' arms crossed in front of its eyes, for it preferred the darkness of the mind. It was a Hunter, the last of an ancient line of ghouls, the first (_The_ Hunter) having captured Elves to mutilate into Orcs, and created out of nebulous gas and the stuff of black holes and quasars by the fallen Valar, Morgoth. This one, though, had been bred to be more of a parasite than an assassin. 

Yes: evil could twist, it could poison and pervert, it could cloud and veil; but it could not create in its own right, only destroy. But anything it did manage to create would either become a parasite or die quickly. And this creature... entity... thing had been designed to break down a relationship that had been in the desired course of events for centuries, if not millennia. For five years this creature had hidden from Nitz the dreams of his youth, supplanting them with what amounted to an obsessive mania for another.

Anyway, the shot had shredded the flannel, revealing a staff of milky wood as the rest of the cloth slid off. The grey-clad one threw aside his cloak (which landed on a guy in a Marilyn Monroe costume), revealing none other than Gandalf the White in all his splendour, and watched as the creature began to turn to face him. A terrible creature of shadow and strangling mist it was, with eyes a field of dark poisonous purple and a sharp chelonian beak where a humans' lips would've been. Wisps of mist formed a mane as black as frozen tar, and claws like obsidian shone out through the haze.

The Hunter looked to Nitz, and reached out a claw to try to re-implant itself, but the light gave it a nasty rebuff. Gandalf drew the sword Glamdring, Foe-hammer of Gondolin from its sheath and set it ready in his right hand, his staff in his left, and announced to the thing: "Shadow of Udun, Spawn of the Void: Time For Round Two!"

The Hunter, enraged at being denied his prey, lunged at the Maia, knocking them past shocked onlookers and out of the door. Soon the grappling had turned nasty, Gandalf whacking the apparition on the head with his staff and trying to free his sword from under the ghouls' arm, while trying to bear the scratches and kicks from its' claws as they free-fell down the stairs and out the front door. They went sprawling into the street, where they got up on unsteady feet to continue.

"I should have destroyed you properly when I had the chance, _wizard_!" hissed the ghoul, "But then again, being inside the girls mind was _so_ entertaining, twisting and funnelling her emotions, her hopes, her fears, don't you think?"

"You'll never again harm another living thing; it ends here!" spat the wizard, wiping blood from his mouth.

"Well, you're right about one thing..." grinned the Hunter, just before it charged Gandalf and knocked the wizard a further thirty feet down the street, Glamdring clattering onto the sidewalk, "It _does_ end here." Its' claws then grew in length and wickedness, and it charged again, prepared to deliver the killing blow.

But as it got within five feet of the fallen wizard, the creature seemed to slam against some form of crystaline wall, from which it received an enormous shock, and was thrown back into a smoking heap, its essence beginning to escape. "No, Hunter, it doesn't!" Said a new, feminine voice, accompanied by a pale floating woman with wild blue hair, a nose ring, and glowing white eyes. She was wearing some manner of high tech gloves and boots. "Not by a long shot!" Using the gloves and some low vocalizations, she began to construct restraints for the ghoul, binding it to the street. Gandalf began to stagger up, and the new woman urged him to skewer the demon... thingy.

He listened, and with a yell, embedded the end of his staff in the creatures chest, and when the light began pouring, the ghoul began to monologue. "Fools. I've a bond with every creature I've ever called home, and if I die, they mourn and grieve, not of their own making but as a failsafe. They sink into despair so deep that only Death itself could break it. And you both know what can happen to the elven-kin when in too much despair." The light was almost all encompassing, but the ghoul got in one last threat. "If I die, I'm taking them down with me!"

And then it was gone, and Gandalf fell to the ground, exhausted. His staff gave one, last, feeble glowbefore it splintered and smoked. Melian (the other Maia) retrieved the sword with an energy barrier acting like a stretcher, and slid it underneath Gandalf too, allowing him to levitate. As the College bus was coming, she settled to the ground and her eyes stopped glowing. She pushed Gandalf onto the bus and waited to get back to Tekerson Tech (her school), so she could finish packing and he could hopefully sleep this off.

From then until the breaking and re-forging of the world, no one who had attended that party ever spoke of what they had seen that night, for fear of being labeled insane.

_Only Death itself..._ with a capital D.

* * *

This was the opening fight seen. The rest will be in upcoming chapters. 


	2. Old Dreams

Disclaimer: UnderGRADS" belongs to Pete Williams, LOTR and the Silmarillion belong to Tolkien, and Master Chalk is from Gormenghast. There is also a Monty Python reference contained herein. Now let us get underway. 

This fic is Rated PG-13 for an attempted suicide by funeral pyre, violence, semi-angst, drunkenness, silliness and mushiness, cussin' and implied snugglebunnies (NEVER anything explicit, but a little innuendo never hurt anyone).

Refer to "The Encyclopaedia of Arda" for clarification on all terms

* * *

**Halls of Mandos, Aman, Midnight, April 16 th-17th, 2001**

Irmo was now certain that his brother had lost all sembalnce of control of his halls. In the coomb where the entrance to the caverns was, through the darkness it looked as if several rockslides had happened, with scars from particle beams and artillery shells. That could mean only one thing... Feanor was loose, and probably dipping into the armoury.

Irmo moved swiftly down the trail, but stopped dead when twin particle beams blasted through the front doors and he had to duck for cover. He then saw a sight that the Feanturi had long dreaded: Feanor, decked out like Rambo, with two giant particle beam cannons in his hands, half the set of the mythical Holy Hand Grenades of Antioch (two) on his shoulder strap, and a helmet whitewashed with the phrase "Born to Kill", charging out of the halls like a mad Sparrow Warrior screaming "KILLEE! KILLEE! KILLEE!" That last part may have been exaggeration, but the thought was there.

Not only that, but after Feanor had run past, leaving Irmo hiding in a pile of brush to avoid being run over, Namo burst out of the doorway ranting/screaming, and I quote:

"IT IS OVER!

THE END HAS COME!

THE BANE IS DYING!

ABANDON YOUR POSTS!

FLEE! FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES! AAAAAHHHHH!"

_THUD_

He'ed fainted.

Stepping over his unconscious brother, Irmo entered to find complete and utter chaos in the Halls of Waiting. Almost everything was overturned and torn apart, with the exception of Vaires' best (meaning all) tapestries, probably due to the fact that she was now holding a decapitated mithril statue in imitation of a mountain troll guarding its lunch. (1)

The Féar of Firstborn were peeking out from behind makeshift barricades, making sure that this newcomer wasn't Féanor coming back to reload, while an attendant maiar and the dwarf tried to coax Thrandulilion down from the rafter he was clinging to. Vaire dropped the statue and ran to her brother in-law, and took him by the hand, pulling him past the chaos, moving towards the control room.

"Wait a minute, what was Namo screaming about the Bane? What did he mean 'dying'?" Irmo jerked his hand away, and refused to move until he got a half-decent expanation.

"My husband was being serious as usual, maybe moreso. Ever since his eternal sight left him, he has been in the greatest depression, and I fear that this has only snapped his mind." The caverns grew longer and narrower as they proceded until it was but a tunnel lit by some of Varda's less impressive creations, and then it was one last room deep in the cliff with a number of crystal screens, one showing an image in it.

"Well, the good news is: whatever was inside of the Took lad is gone. Olorin and Melian made sure of that." Commented Vaire

"I knew I raised those two right. I know that Ulmo wanted to apprentice them but..." Irmo wasproud of what he had taught the 'lesser' of the Ainur.

"And the bad news" interrupted Vaire, "is that while they did destroy it, the damage was already done. Look."

Irmo looked now to the screen. Fear and dread gripped the Dream keeper as he saw what he did. It was a live feed from the Timeless Halls, and it showed the infant spirit of their great prophesized hope, who should have been conceived two minutes ago. This hope was not to be a great and terrible warrior like Turin, or an advisor or scribe like Elrond, just an ordinary girl whose destiny The One had apparently pegged for something very, very big involving Meklor's final defeat and demotion ceremony.

In other words, this human was probably the best chance the Ainur had for cutting the colossal arse-hole down to size. But the spirit was fading, slipping from time, from existance itself.

"What do you expect me to do? I do not have the power to determine fate; the one who does is lying comatose on the front doorstep, and what needs to be done cannot be woven into a tapestry!" Irmo muttered angrily, although most of it already had been, but a few of the panels had been destroyed when Melian went berserk 19 years previous.

"But..." Vaire began to rub her chin "if we cannot use the direct approach to set this right, than maybe we can use some form of reinforced suggestion?"

"If you're talking dreams, dear sister, you can forget it. I spent too much time away from Este crafting those dreams, only to have them hidden, mangled and just plain altered by that _thing_! And those were the really good ones, full of flirting and romantics and even the discarding of unmentionables! I AM NOT doing all that again!" Irmo turned his back to his sister-in-law and slammed his foot, a show of finality.

"Too bad then, because I don't fancy having to tell Feanor that you let his half-great-great-niece get her heart broken." That got Irmo's attention in a hurry, because no matter how much he ever despised his half-Vanyarin half- brothers and their lines, Feanor would take any excuse to take one of the Feanturi down. "And then there's that little matter of Operation M.B."

"Okay, okay, I'll do it, but I can't put them all back in one night, that would fry every neuron above the cerebellum thrice over." Irmo gave up, a little frightened of having to face the son of Finwé when he returned from his mad errand.

"Two months should do it: short enough so he can rectify it, long enough so he doesn't become a complete raving nutter. I think having him apologise in the morning would be most beneficial.

"I'll certainly try." And so, with one last sigh, Irmo began re-twisting the threads of dreams out of the air, gathering and spinning a great many strands together into a single yarn, singing of love and forgiveness, of love deep as any sea and forgiveness for this loneliness and abandonment, praying that it would be enough so that their hope would not leave them.

* * *

**Back in the mortal world...**

Nitz was having his first truly peaceful sleep in five years (except for that brief stretch earlier that spring at the coming of the rains), unmarred by nightmares of vicious confrontations that would fade before the dawn. His dreams were now his own or, at least, the ones he was supposed to have.

Here's a sneak peek.

* * *

'A forest! That was what this was! A forest, complete with ferns and animals and even the faint humming songs of trees... singing trees? Where the heck am I?' 

These were the wonderings of a boy not much more than eleven or twelve years old, wandering though the woodland halls of a thick forest of maple and beech. The gossamer webs of forest spiders were sparkling in the mid-morning sun, the songs of thrushes and larks and nightingales were coming from the far woods and a lone grouse calling on a low branch. He had no idea where he was; he looked for some sort of landmark, anything that stood out.

He had no time. An arrow flew over his head, skewering the grouse right at the base of the neck and killing it instantly. Parker dived into the ferns in case a second arrow found its way to _his_ neck. A great, white crow-like bird flew to the carcass and began plucking feathers as the sound of horses came up not twenty feet of Parker's hiding place. The shaken boy peeked out to see two grey dappled horses with adult riders and two brown geldings with children about his age.

The male adult was somewhat strange, having pointed, leaf-shaped ears, dark brown hair that was probably rib-length, wearing chaps and vest of green and brown and carrying a grey recurve bow. The woman (most likely his wife) was exceptionally stunning; well for her years, and of Asiatic descent. The children had dark brown hair and possesed skin of a hearty and sort of dusky beige. The son was toying at a bow is size, looking down the blunted arrow as he aimed it this way and that. The boys' sister looked quite bored, reading a book of ancient poems in a language unknown to the boy.

The lad in hiding was now certain that this was a dream, for not a girl so fair could possibly exist in the waking world. Even as the bird finished plucking the grouse and delivered the skewered bird to the man, the boy still stared wide-eyed at the beauty before him and vowed, that from that hour, he (Parker Walsh) would love no other than her (the same promise made by a certain elf- fostered Dunedain who shall remain nameless), even if it meant being alone until his death with only a dream to go for. Pre-teen crush or not, this certainly was _something._

Even though the boy was still in hiding and quiet as a mouse, some sound or glint of fabric must have caught her attention, for she looked to her right and eye contact was established. Now that he could see her face, he was even more entranced, especially by her eyes. Deep pools of cinnamon were they and never had he seen a girls eyes this closely... or this... un-yucky!

(The guy is twelve years old... cut him some slack!)

His view was cut short when a gloved hand grabbed the back of his shirt and lifted him from the ferns. His eyes now were level with a set so unlike the girls', though they shared... something, a subtle shape perhaps. These eyes were solid domes of beaten silver with beads of jet at the centre, as cold as steel and sharp as flint, set in a slim and pale face. A crested helm of brass framed this face, and then another face, eerily the same, appeared beside the first.

"My king, either something strange is going on with the rabbits, or you have an intruder in your woods!" Said the first face in the strange tongue. The other, now looking more closely, saw a clear sign of his mothers' lineage. "He is definitely Edain, but these tips on his ears make no sense!" said the stranger, lifting a side of the lads' mop of hair with his hand to reveal a slight backwards-sweeping point to the topmost of the lobe. How exactly the boy knew what they were saying he could not tell, perhaps just being part of the dream.

From the woods more figures appeared from among the trees, melting from the forest as if by some strange magic. Parker looked again to the girl, who now had her head turned and her cheeks blush-stained: She had been looking back! The two males from the original group got from their horses and came over to the boy.

"Put him down" The man sighed. The guards complied, and the man kneeled to face the boy. "Who are you?" Asked the strange man, but Parker could only keep his eyes on the beauty of the girl.

This dream ended, and the next one began.

* * *

**Chilton Hall Dormitory – at exactly the same time**

"He's not coming." Such was the sad realization of the female half of this sorry excuse for a prophecy: Jessica Kingson, daughter of both the line of Finwé and the men of the lands far east of Middle Earth... no... it was called Europe now. Opposite her sat (by way of rounded table and stackable chairs) Jonah: the crown prince to those (sensible) Noldorin who dwell now in mortal lands, the most hunted male on campus and her fraternal-twin to boot.

"Even if he did show his face now, his food is getting all cold..." He took the last bite of the chicken Kiev "and eaten." He then got up from his chair and took his dishes to the bathroom sink to wash. "But the question remains. How did my dear sister, whose first attempt at hard-boiling an egg resulted in the water catching fire, concoct such gleefully inoffensive tasting fare?" To this Jesse responded that she had gotten it from the kitchens of the Student Union by special purchase.

"Interesting. Catered food, candles, that dress of yours and..." he sniffed the air "perfume?" He took her dishes too. "If I didn't know any better, I would say you were going to try to seduce the guy." The silence he got only served to answer his thought and to make him realize he'd stumbled upon something better left unstumbled."Well, there's always next year, plus we could try to track him down but then again we have no idea where he lives."

Suddenly Jonahs senses cranked into a state only scared rabbits (and his elvish kin) ever experience. He methodically, almost mechanically opened the window and, taking a running start, jumped out into the night, leaving Jesse to do the rest of the clean up. The reason for her brothers' departure came through the door soon afterwards; Jesses' insufferable roommate: Charity. This woman was, to put it kindly, a complete basket case, a freak show of an idiotic blonde that had enamoured Jonah early in the year because of some passing resemblance to some historical elven maid or another.

That had led to a first date, in which Jonah had discovered that she was severely lacking in the common sense and cognitive areas. He had broken off the relationship, but she had become somewhat obsessed, and was now stalking him... leaving Jesse to only lament for her brother and suffer Charity's ramblings. The poor deluded wench asked if Jesse was going on a date with that dress. "No, not anymore." This was the sad reply that uttered from Jesses lips.

**Tekerson Technical Institute, Western New York State, April 17th, Dawn**

Tabitha Melvin (Melians' cover identity) was finishing packing up all her stuff. This included her potted Mallorn sapling from Yavanna, Varda's special growing lamps for use in this sad excuse for a goblin pit, her computer, monitor, and other special hacking equipment courtesy of a generous donation and scholarship from Eldemar Technologies (really just a gift from the folks back home).

These were accompanied by a few more traditional needs, including a Teleri hoop-hammock, linens, electric cooler, microwave (she didn't need to remember Rita's lecture on hotplate regulations), and a couple extra banks of memory to hold a friends consciousness. Her current guest, on the other hand, had just finished sleeping off the effects of a very nasty pummelling on the standard bar cot.

"Dear sister," Gandalf said groggily "the next time it gets into my fool head to try to battle one of Morgoths' homemade monstrosities, slap some sense into me and then sic the eagles on, or maybe just tell Tulkas that it stole his Holy Hand Grenade Collection and let him brawl to his hearts content."

Melian chuckled. "Too late, Feanor already got the half that Namo had borrowed for the Hall armoury. Said something about diving for that Silmaril off the mid-Atlantic ridge." Gandalf, getting another headache, asked how their other friend was doing. "Well, if the projections they gave us were right, he should wake up sometimes around September 9th, then he can get G-Prime to come to his senses... maybe."

"Are you sure all this effort is worth it? Even if that _is_ Elu inside that little meshuga, I doubt he remembers anything from when you two were an item; Doriath, Menegroth, Luthien, he probably won't even remember _you_! But then again... he _does _abide virtually underground, is enamoured by shiny things (wait, that was the dwarves), and your first meeting with both of them DID consist mostly of pranks." The Wizard indeed hoped that it was possible to bring it out, lest Melian got angry again.

With that, Gandalf tried to get up, only to find the remains of his staff. "They really should give us more information if they expect us to fight effectively, instead of this 'need-to-know' crap. If I had known how tough this thing was going to be, I would have requisitioned a couple of eagles, or a pack of Orome's hounds, or just got a better staff. I could have died the on the street! "

"Interesting thing." Said Melian, "As far as people on this floor know, the paramedics took you to the morgue an hour ago. The body you had last night experienced brain-death early this morning; the head offices sent you a new one just before you woke up, which means you're completely fit but you should still remember the pain. I had them leave your clothes and the sword."

Only now did Gandalf realize that, like so many time before, his new body did not come with clothes. "Frag!" was Gandalf's only response as gathered up his clothes and headed to the bathroom (a corner portapotty).

"And could you be quick about it? I don't want people to get the innuendo mill running by having them see a nude wizard in my room." Melian called back, obviously enjoying her colleagues perdiciment.

"Innuendo Shminnuendo." Mumbled Gandalf as he emerged, fully robed and took up a push broom to use as a walking stick, then asked whether she was ready to go.

"Sure, we just have to get all this stuff on those hand-carts over there, but the portapotty stays." Thus they loaded it all up, and wheeled it out of the building in time to see Gimpy's minions saluting him on the way out.

"So, do you think we won?" asked Melian as they wheeled towards one of the secret paths that run 'west of the moon and east of the sun'.

"Won? Whatever that thing was, we definately destroyed it. But if it spoke true, than our troubles are only beginning." Long experience had taught that very rarely are things mopped up so neatly.

And in the town morgue, a startled coroner nearly plotzed himself when the body he was cutting open turned to sand.

* * *

See y'all next time with chapter 3! 

(1) A testement to the lightness of Mithril as a metal


	3. Hope and Fear

Here you shall read of Morgoths' Bane, and of her parents. "UnderGRADS" belongs to Pete Williams, LOTR and the Silmarillion belong to Tolkien, and Master Chalk is from Gormenghast. The town of Lindon, Jonah and other original characters are mine. Now let us get underway.

This fic is Rated PG-13 for an attempted suicide by funeral pyre, violence, angst, drunkenness, silliness, mushiness, cussin' and implied snugglebunnies (NEVER anything explicit, but a little innuendo never hurt anyone). Also contained herein is a dangerously high amount of LOTR quotations, paraphrases and inspired scenes.

Refer to "The Encyclopaedia of Arda" for clarification on all terms

All dreams, visions, hallucinations (and other extrasensory hoohaw) are property of Irmo the Dream Dude.

**State U Campus, Western New York State, April 17th, Shortly after Dawn**

Jonah peered cautiously from the bows of the oak that hid and held him aloft. Jesse had just finished screaming at Nitz, filled with anger after a night of stewing,and had gotten back in the car, driving his way. He honestly couldn't decide which of them to feel more sorry for: his sister for getting stood up, or Nitz for having to suffer that scathing repertoire of lowered expectations and disappointments.

He lowered himself from the bough, touching down with no shake of branch or track on ground to mark his passing… well he attempted to at any rate. He had spent the entire night in that tree after jumping out his sisters window and now he was cold, stiff and very possibly developing a runny nose. That and having the mantle of "belonging to the race of men" placed upon him made this almost impossible without some noise.

He slunk to a row of shrubbery and pulled his plastic crates of stuff out from under the leaves, always watchful of his surroundings lest Charity catch him out in the open. Racing to the meeting point, he darted from tree to bush to building corner as best his stiff legs allowed, always hiding, always watching for the girl that had made this year a waking nightmare for him.

And thus Jonah reached the point, a bush shelter where the car had stopped to wait. He opened the back, loaded his things, and then seated himself shotgun beside his sister. "I take it didn't go well." Quipped he, observing Jesse's near-snarl. To this she only growled as she started up the ignition, and started driving. "Just asking!" was Jonahs reply.

But they had not driven twenty seconds when Jesse slammed on the brakes, looking genuinely terrified, complete with cold sweat. Jonah regained his breath and asked his sisters name, but Jesse remained wide-eyed, almost as if she was watching something.

-JESEES POV-

'Oh god, oh god, oh god, I almost hit A KID!' she thought. And Jesse was correct, at least in her perception. She had seen a young girl run across the street, and had braked hard to avoid hitting her. But she did not hear the screech of the tires, her brothers' yelp, or even her haggard breathing. Only the rush of her own pulse was heard as she watched the girl run into a small parking lot.

The strange thing, however, was that the scene changed, the lot becoming a wide room and balcony of grey stone, the south balcony of her families home in Lindon in fact. The girl bounded, arms outstretched, toward a male figure facing the outside, which turned as he heard this girl, and scooped her up in his arms. This mans' face was unmistakeable even when marked with the signs of maturity and the beard: it was definitely Nitz. The girl laughed as he spun her in the air, and then stopped long enough to give her a piercing stare.

The girl had straight hair of a coppery brown like Nitz, and his eyes and ears, but the nose, chin and mouth she also knew, and they did NOT belong to Kimmy Burton. It was because they were the same mouth, chin and nose that greeted her in the mirror every morning. Jesse closed her eyes to try to think, but the only thing she could remember was a fragment of a meeting she had overheard in her childhood.

"_I looked into her future and I saw death."_ That had been Elrond, giving an unusually dim outlook on his fore-sighting to her father.

But a stranger had also been there, an Istar clad all in white if she remembered correctly. _"But was there not also life?" _he had asked.

She opened her eyes, but all of it was gone, save a parking lot with a couple of cars near the back. How would this be possible now, with the way she had yelled at Nitz? Thus, acting under intense frustration, ghoul-induced despair, and the thought that this future was almost certainly gone, she did the only thing she could do.

She began to cry.

-NORMAL POV-

Jonah could not believe what he was seeing! His sister, always stalwart and strong, having borne with him the high school torment that was Noldorin bitch princesses was now crying! This was definitely too strange, even for their family. He then decided that the sensitive approach might elicit a response. "I'll drive, I'll drive." Said he in a soft voice, as he opened his door, and helped his sister into the passenger seat, remembering to buckle her in.

As he walked around to the drivers seat, a shrill girlish yell of his name split the quiet morning air, as Charity came running out of her car. This only encouraged him to get moving even more. Thus, he laid rubber to asphalt and sped them back home.

**Meanwhile…**

Nitz climbed to the roof of Chilton hall, mulling over what Jesse had said. _Had_ he learned anything this year? Aside from his formal education, most of his social interaction had come not from Rocko's nightspot hopping and liquor store diatribes, nor had it come from Cal's almost ceaseless parade of lady friends and one night stands. Not even Gimpy's schemes, endless in their complexity, if not in their relative feasibility, had introduced him to college life.

No, it had mostly been Jesse and her motley group of three that had introduced him to the wider world. There was Brody, with his obsession for cinema. There was also Kruger and his rather peculiar taste in language and intoxicants, and Dan, who never said much, but whose laugh could either inspire a chuckle or just make them glad that they weren't him. And then… there was Jesse.

There were instances he remembered that now made him feel like an idiot for not noticing how attractive she was. The Expo, for example, when they were both naked as jaybirds, yet he didn't even seem to notice anything about her… actually, that was sort of creepy. Maybe there was something to all those conspiracy theories Gimpy's little sister spouted after all.

Why had he dreamt of Jesse all those times when he was younger, even though he did not know her?

Why had those dreams stopped, to be replaced by something that led him to Kimmy?

And why, if they were only going to pack, did Jesse seem so hurt?

Was it possible that she _did_ think of him as more than just a friend?

Nitz went down to his dorm, and began to pack up his stuff. When he came to his picture of Kimmy, he stopped and sighed. "All those wasted days, the nights spent fantasizing about her, and all these have come to naught."

"Hey Nitz Guy!" Cal, surprising him, shook Nitz out of his stupor. Nitz turned to see his blonde roommate, his usual clueless stare replaced with one of worry.

"Cal!" exclaimed Nitz, trying to exude a false sense of calm "When did you get in?"

To this, Cal just became confused. "Uh, best friend guy, I was here all the time, you just didn't notice me."

"Uh…" replied a puzzled Nitz.

"Yeah Nitz, I mean I've seen you pretty whacked out before, but you've never been THIS out of it!" Thus said Rocko, who had been sitting on a chair near the far closet smoking.

"I must be losing MY MIND!" seethed Nitz through his teeth, clutching the sides of his head and turning away. But then again, maybe he already HAD, maybe the only time in the last five school years he had been fully coherent were those three almost-memorable days he had spent as Jesses' roommate… and was he drooling?

Rocko noticed this dripping spittle and assumed a lecherous grin "So, did you do it with Kimmy Burton?"

Nitz spun backat these words, and his mouth issued forth one word, filled with a horrified rage (and all the force of an erupting volcano) at the very thought of the suggestion "NEVER!!!!" This would be very frightening indeed, because it's a well-known fact that using multiple exclamations is the sign of an (already) unbalanced mind.

This sudden outburst was so intense that Rocko, a hulking ox of a freshman, toppled of the back of his chair, while Cal tried to hide under the bed. Nitz, surprised by his outburst, just said, "No, we didn't… thankfully." That last part was a mere mumble.

Rocko, watching Nitz warily, helped him pack as Cal got his head untangled from his chilli pepper lights. Outside, Gimpy (Justin Taylor for all you genealogy nuts out there) was in the drivers' seat of the Honda Civic Sedan shared jointly by the four for the express purpose of driving up and down the route from this college town to the Finger Lakes country, to Ithaca. Gimpy had donned dark glasses because of his long stint in halls darkened of all but fluorescent light.

The group of three descended to the parking lot. As the car was being loaded, Gimpy almost asked Nitz about the previous night, but Rocko warned against it with a wave of his hand and a shake of his head, and then twirled his finger about his temporal lobe, signifying that Nitz was not in a state for talking. They drove east, and then south, going up into the mountains, all the time Nitzs' mind wandered, and then settled on something.

When he and Jesse had cohabitated, she had been heard to mumble in her sleep, even having it come out as strange, exotic words in a melodious tone, as if she had been singing in her dreams. Nitz settled on one melody to hum, even beginning to softly sing the words. "A Elbereth… Gilthoniel." No one else heard this, or if they did, just thought he was going 'peculiar'.

**Lindon, 14 miles away, New York State, April 17th, 7 AM**

The steel braced wooden gates swung open to allow the red station wagon passage from the tree-lined streets of the main town to the gravel drive and great staircase leading to the entry alcove. Guards from the walls, outside gate and various towers attached to public buildings announced the return of the heirs though the blowing of horns or the use of radio.

Brass-couloured armour, tinged with green, glinted in the morning sun as guards and hired help moved forward as the rust-coloured, human-made beastless carriage ground to a halt. Opening the back, they removed the crates and cardboard boxes as Jonah opened the door and helped a not quite coherent, red-and-puffy-eyed sister out of the car and to the steps. As they came up the steps, their parents came down to greet them, but stopped short when they saw Jesse being supported by her brother. Their father, Ereinion Gil-Galad, took on a worried face. "What happened?"

Jonah stopped as he passed his father. "She got stood up." As Jonah helped Jesse to her chambers, their father abandoned his normally proud stance, slumped his shoulders and looked to his wife for some form of encouragement. He had never expected anything like this: for his daughter to fall in love and not have her love returned.

As he slumped back into the hall, Elrond Earendilion, herald to the King, came up beside him and his wife. "My king, I have a _very_ bad feeling about all this."

"Good," replied the king "at least that means I'm not the only one."

* * *

Feedback would be appreciated, as well as recommendations on the offspring's skin-tone 


	4. Decay

Morgoths Bane Ch. 4

Disclaimer: Basically, I own squat and am making no money in this (with my luck, probably losing it). The Tolkiens, Pete Williams and Greg Weisman own all… with the possible exception of Nitzs' middle name. Eugene: a bumbling and reserved sounding name to go with a bumbling and reserved Parker Walsh. Gormenghast characters Dr. Prunesquallor & Master Chalk belong to the late Mervyn Peake.

On with the show (no matter how hopeless, complicated or just plain Pratchettian it may become.)

* * *

**Ithaca, New York, May 3rd, 2001 **

Nitz sighed over his porridge. He'd only even got out of bed because his stomach had protested at the smell of cooking food; he hadn't even left his bed for a couple of days. He hadn't really eaten anything either, or shaven for that matter for the express reason that, in his depression, he was a hair's width-away from crooning, _"COME BACK TO ME! COME BACK TO ME AND SAY MY LAND IS FAIR!" _in the fashion of a drunken tolkien character and was getting more desperate by the hour.

A mere month ago he would have been ecstatic over the thought of his alleged crush on Ms. Burton coming full circle. He now he got the feeling that such an event would have DRASTICALLY shortened his lifespan (down to about 26, while according to the great big Ipod in the sky, he was supposed to be able to jig at his eleventy-first birthday).

As for Jesse, he felt that if he were to have any chance of winning her favour after the Screw Week Fiasco (as he had termed it), he would need to know two things: the whereabouts of a dragon just an inch or two longer than the one St. George fought; and where to find a division of Sherman Tanks to take it down with. In other words, he felt like a complete and utter cad, a fool the likes of which had not graced his mothers' family for quite a long while (his mothers family was infamous for its fools).

He needed a friend who could listen, a friend he could trust… instead he got Rocko Gambiani: professional drunkard, long-time acquaintance but a friend nonetheless.

Later in the day Rocko did indeed come by, barely missing Anne Walsh's customary punishment for not wiping your feet: a soup ladle to the head. "Hey Nitz, wanna go out later, cruise the bars maybe?"

"Excuse me but do I need to remind you boys that this isn't collage, and this certainly isn't a collage town. All the owners around here know who you two are, _especially_ you Mr. Gambiani. You aren't old enough to get in; even if you did no one would serve you." This steady voice, hidden behind a broadsheet newspaper, was that of Nitzs' father, Patrick Walsh: Professor of Twentieth Century History at Cornell University, Vietnam draft dodger and avid jogger (if for no other reason then that his wife had been raised firm in the knowledge that she would never be called upon to fix less than five meals a day).

Anne Walsh sidled up beside her husband of twenty years, lending silent support to this argument, or maybe just to give Rocko her SECOND punishment for treading gravel onto her linoleum: the Scowl, a cherished family ability on her mothers side. It was true, thought Nitz. This community was pretty close when it came to knowing whose kids were old enough to drink, but Rocko had found ways around this: befriending the bouncers, only going on the shifts of the more careless bartenders, and of course his fake ID's for the liquor stores. But if he could, as the song said 'heal my heart and drown my woe', then maybe he could take the risks that this entailed.

As Nitz got up to get his coat, Rocko sat down at the table, ate Nitzs' unfinished sandwich and began something not usual for him: friendly inquiry. "So," asked Rocko in a tone just shy of a schmoozing drunk "any idea what's got Nitz like this?"

"Well," began Anne in a tone that basically said 'I'll forgive you if you can help Parker' "he's been pining, which is strange since he's NEVER pined; not even after that Burton Girl left for collage. He's also been mumbling in his sleep."

"But since we can hear it all the way from our room" interjected Patrick " it's a little loud to be called mumbling. Sounded more like very intense dreaming, almost happy in places."

"But during the day he acts like one of us had died or something?" asked Rocko. Nitzs' parents nodded, then went back to what they were doing just as their son came back in. So they went outside, and as they passed a payphone, it rang and Rocko picked it up out of curiosity. "Rocko here."

"Rocko?" came a familiar croaking voice

"Gimpy? How the hell did you get this number? You aren't hacking into the phone system again are you?"

"Not in any way they'll be able to trace back to me, no. Why do you ask?"

"Then how did you know I'd be next to this phone right now?" Asked Rocko, slightly confused at his banter.

"You told me that you were going to check up on Nitz, I ran a simulation of possible detours, distractions and wind sheers through my secondary computer, but the micro-tracers I put into my moms oatmeal cookie dough last summer made it oh so much easier. They really stick to your ribs you know. So, how's Nitz doing?"

Rocko, now doubting the edibility of ANYTHING that came out of the Taylor Kitchen, told Gimpy "I've never seen Nitz like this before, and I've seen some of his worse funks. But this just looks like the love of life's draining out of him or something. So the plan's to take him to a bar until he's so drunk that he can't even feel depressed."

Gimpy didn't think this was such a good idea, but couldn't talk for much longer. He disconnected and went back to his patient, as he had taken a psychology course over the Internet and was now taking on a few unofficial paying clients to supplement his tuition fees. Cal had been by earlier to say hello, and while Gimpy was unable to discern the cause of Cal's general stupidity, he was able to con him out of $20.00. His current patient was Kimmy Burton, who was complaining of strange dreams, nightmares and hysterical visions relating to the fact that she had kissed Nitz.

This was going to be a _very _long session, so it was fortunate that he charged by the hour.

* * *

**7 PM, The Friendly Cur Inn**

If there were one way to describe the Friendly Cur, it would be _traditional_. The current patrons father had emmigrated from Belfast in the late 60's and had set out to recreate "Old world hospitality" in the new by renovating an old hostel. It had a large open area on the ground floor with tables, benches and stools and a bar to the right of the door with the occasional brick-encased beam in the middle of the floor to support the rooms above.

It was a brick and wood building with plaster on the inside walls. It was also a true inn or Public House, not a simple tavern, not a hotel with a bar, just a place for the regulars and first timers to meet, eat, carouse and sleep off their condition and/or their tiffs with their spouses and mates; in FACT, the cellar here was where Patrick Walsh had hid out the Vietnam War.

It was also the last establishment that Nitz had _any_ hope of getting into (and Rocko even less), having been either chased out or politely (in the loosest sense possible) refused entry by the bouncers. Nitzs' parents probably had something to do with this, concerned for their sons' well being; but since this place focused less on hard liquor and more on food of the roasted, baked and fried varieties and the Walsh's were known here, they probably decided that the patron was responsible enough to keep Nitz sober. They would find out soon enough.

"Nitz," warned Rocko before they opened the door "you got to be careful in here."

"Why in the world for?" Nitz already knew where this was going, but he wanted to be completely sure before saying anything

"The damn owner's Irish. You know what my opinion of them is." Replied Rocko, shaking his fist

"Tell me: would this 'opinion' have more to do with your mothers Brooklyn background, or the fact that this was the first bar you ever got thrown out of, after Mr. Sullivan found out your true age?" It seemed strange, but now that Kimmy no longer preoccupied his mind, he had begun to reflect on many things: these dreams, Cal's stupefying naiveté and Rocko's repugnant behaviour to name but a few, including 'what part of the chicken does the nugget come from anyway?'

As they entered, they barely missed a server carrying two roast chickens and eight pint-steins of beer to a bachelor party on the near left corner. They walked to the bar though a particularly busy crowd of sundry men and women young and old and began looking for empty benches.

Now, as Kevin Sullivan, the Patrons son, sighted Rocko and with a muttered "oh crap" rushed back to get his father, an eye found Nitz from the very back corner of the room. An old man in a worn grey cloak lifted a sniffer of stale brandy to his nose and sniffed it absently. Memory came back to him, an unpleasant one of the spring of early April and the coming of the rains.

**Coming of the Rains, April 2001 (i.e. "Roommates")**

The wizard crouched behind a hedge, thumb hovering over a button on a small metal box. This was a trigger for a certain type of trap, the one on the sidewalk on the other side of the street: flat, crystalline and damn near invisable when set. He spied his quarry: a young man carrying two huge paper bags full of mini-pasta and other such essentials walking towards the trap. When he stepped over it, the trap was activated; a strange ripple in the fabric of space went up from the trap, and then down again. The target (Nitz) also appeared to loose his balance for an instant, regain it and with a shrug, continued walking on.

Gandalf, looking to make sure he wasn't seen, ducked out and moving extremely fast and quietly for a man of his advanced years, crossed the street and picked op the paper-thin crystal. Nitz glanced back, thinking he heard something, but the wizard was already gone.

When the Istar stopped, he was behind the houses on that side, inspecting the vague dark mist beyond the translucent crystal panes on the expanded trap (an octahedron) with a certain pleased smile and slipping the box and trigger into his cloak, walked back to his motel. He would have to study this thing further.

Over the next few days, he made extensive notes on the creatures make up and habits, including the fact that starlight, such as was radiated from the end of his staff, had a negative affect on the apparition even in miniscule doses. On the final day, Gandalf went to say goodbye to Melian at Tekerson. He didn't want to get caught in the approaching storm, so he took a shortcut to the Technical College through an alley littered with the results of a demolition job: chunks of concrete with bits of rebar sticking out. But this day was not to be his best.

Without warning, dark-clad figures of the sort referred to as 'evil ninjas' emerged from the shadows, surrounding the wizard. A fight ensued, sword and staff deflecting jabs and kicks from nearly every angle until a sword slash caught one of the attackers on the arm, ripped straight through the arms and torso… revealing grey metal and wires in place of flesh and bone.

Gandalf stared in disbelief as the wreckage writhed and clattered to the ground, leaving an opening for another evil ninja to roll up and soccer-kick the trap-box up out of Gandalfs grasp. The trap went flying into the debris, where a bump must have hit the release button. The other robots collected the pieces of their fallen brother before escaping back into the shadows.

The ghoul materialized out of the dark mist, and instantly attacked the wizard that had harmed it. The fight went badly, the ghoul pummelling and clawing the wizard and at last, when the ghoul held Gandalf high by the neck, it chose to speak.

"Any last words, _wizard_?" the thing almost spat this word, _almost_ because it didn't have any spittle.

Choosing at last, Gandalf chose three to rasp out. "_You're…too…late._" The ghoul scrunched its features in consternation, before it turned its head to the right… and witnessed the worst piece of luck in ages. It was Jesse, walking casually back to campus from a trip to buy ingredients for her Elf cordial substitute.

Turning back to Gandalf, the ghoul smiled cruelly. "Now that that's done, good bye." The creature hurled the wizard backward into the rubble – which wouldn't have hurt that much if not for the 7-inch rebar spike protruding from a concrete chunk that skewered Gandalf through the spinal column and ruptured the heart (or what passed for one). Before passing out, Gandalf saw a horrible sight: the ghoul possessing its next host, Jesse.

**PRESENT**

Gandalf shook his head as he began to watch the young man once more. This called for something more immediate than Irmos' two-month schedule if his last social call to Lindon had been any indication; and he had a plan, risky as it was, to speed the process up.

**Meanwhile…**

Michael Sullivan, Father of Kevin and Patron of the Friendly Cur, thundered out of the kitchens with a police issue truncheon in one hand and a dishrag in the other. "GAMBIAMI! I thought I told you to stay out until you were 21!" Michael stopped short of the pair, not seeing Nitz; and just pointed the truncheon at the door. "Out! Just out!"

The crowd, suddenly drawn to this fracas, turned all heads to the patron and awaited Rocko's' response. "Screw this, I'm going home" were Rocko's last words before his customary insult of "Irish!" as he stalked out the door.

The crowd returned to its business, and Michael saw Nitz for the first time. "Sparky?"

Nitz groaned at his pre-lice nickname, but couldn't really do anything but nod. Michael walked up to him, lowering his implement of mayhem and sighed. "You know you're not supposed to come in here."

"Okay," Nitz said, throwing up his hands in defeat. "No booze… but I am pretty hungry; haven't eaten in days." Nitz sat down on a stool at the bar while Michael put away the truncheon and rag and asked him what he wanted. "Something light. Don't want to load up while my stomach is still weak. Any ideas?"

"Egg on toast's always a safe bet: Not too heavy but nice and solid; the perfect thing to get your stomach back on its feet." Suggested Michael

" Sounds good." Nitz replied. Michael turned back but Nitz added something "Make that five orders… and some of that nice bacon that Sarah makes please." Michael just shook his head and stifled a chuckle. There was always been something odd about Mrs. Walsh's definition of _a light meal_ and it seemed only proper that this would pass to Parker.

Michael turned back to Nitz. "Do you maybe want a cup of tea with that too?"

"Sure." Nitz replied.

**5 Chicken on a Raft (east english colloquialism), 2 plates of bacon, 3 mugs of tea and 1-½ hours later…**

Nitz stifled a belch as the dishes of the first substantial food he had eaten in 3 or 4 days cooled before him. Michael came up, buffing out the moisture rings "Sounds like you enjoyed it."

"Oh yeah."

"Well, that'll be $22.50 then"

Nitz dug into his wallet… and pulled out all of three $5.00 bills, thus continuing an ancient Scotti curse that no male born of a Took will carry anything near exact change. This would have turned sour save for the fact that Kevin had the good sense to whisper something in his father's ear.

"Say Sparky, I don't normally do this, but I'll forget the balance if you do a little favour for me." He leaned over conspiratorially to Nitz and pointed to the wizard not drinking his brandy in the far corner. "Some of the regulars have been complaining about him, hasn't moved in four days. I'm afraid if he stays here any longer, they'll think something's strange about this place and stop coming. Just go over there and try to rouse him."

Nitz got up and slowly advanced towards the stooped figure, which almost began to look less stooped as he approached, and was felt to be almost radiating a feeling of countless years and uncertain power. "Excuse me sir, but are you alright?" Nitz reached out to shake the old mans shoulder, but faster than deemed possible the mans left hand shot up and grabbed his wrist. Then, after gulping down his brandy with this free hand and laying some coins on the table, the wizard got to his feet and uncovered his face from his hood.

His eyes were a solid field of white light.

Later on, Nitz was unable to remember much of what happened, save for countless images and sounds bombarding him all at once (without any of them going through his eyes or ears first), but the three that stood out were an image of Jesse looking suspiciously healthier than usual (not that he even knew what that meant, but it was the only explanation that came to mind), a pair of malevolent violet eyes, and last a vision of Jesse appearing wan and pale, almost sickly so. But it was said that the stranger had up and ran when he had collapsed, disappearing into thin air when he jumped into the bay window out front. But so many new visions had come, like those staring eyes… and Jesse.

**Lindon, Orleans County. Earlier that day**

"You want me to talk to the bird?"

This was Jesse, who was currently face to face with Master Chalk, the family pet, doorbell and unofficial living totem. Chalk was an albino Eurasian raven, purported to have found their father in Manhattans Central Park after being released from Mandos, and was currently perched on the back of a wooden chair while Jonah hovered near his bed-ridden sister.

"Yes, anything to keep the mind occupied until we find Nitz, which, I promise you my sister, will not be long in coming. In the mean time, would you like anything? Coffee, or how about your favourite, some strawberry pistachio ice cream?" Jesse only nodded as Jonah left, closing the door behind him as Chalk tried some introductory croaks. Jonah leaned back on the door and sighed.

"I take it you've hit a wall, my prince."

Jonah looked up to see the concerned face of Elrond, the royal major-domo, town doctor and fellow half-elf, though second generation. "No, that would imply I had been _making_ progress, whereas here she's been going straight downhill for the last two and a half weeks." Here Jonah wrinkled his brow in a tired thought. "Can mortal halfelven die of grief?"

"Not that I know of, but it is documented that emotion plays a significant role in our health. It seems strange that she would show any symptoms at all, being born mortal. It is very unlikely she will die from this… although Gandalf was acting forlorn at our last meeting several days ago, so maybe there is something he knows that I do not."

Here Jonah and Elrond began to walk to the kitchens, the younger relating his lack of success to the elder. "I've tried every stress relief method mentioned in the library, related to her all the jokes and silly stories I know, now I'm delving into flavours of ice cream no sane person save my sister likes. I mean, she won't eat and she barely sleeps, this funk is like… like…"

"A nightfall in winter that comes without a star?" supplied Elrond

"Are you sure you never ghostwrote for Byron?" remarked Jonah as they entered the kitchen.

As the prince went down to cold storage, Elrond answered "No, that wasThrandulilions' job.

* * *

I know this is long, but it's just getting exciting. 


	5. Breaking Point

Morgoths Bane chap. 5

Disclaimer: I do not own these properties and I don't claim too, it's just that some things prove too tempting not to write of, and thus all roads are explored, mapped and have tolls placed upon them. Discworld, Undergrads, Gargoyles and the whole Lord of the Rings thing belong to their creators, but I'm driving this jalopy how and where I please.

Summary: When grief reaches critical mass, even in a human, something needs to relieve it… but what happens when the release valve is 100 miles away and where said critical mass would potentially set the stage for rip in the Trousers of Time (a causality rupture) that would make Tunguska look like a firecracker?

Much Thanks to Scott Joduin and Michael Sheedy. Much advice on the story give did they.

* * *

**Ithaca, New York, May 16th, 2001 (a park somewhere)**

Nitz held his head in his hands as he looked down at the pavement. He was sitting on a bench in one of Ithaca's many scenic natural spaces, contemplating while he could. The last 13 days had been the closest he'd ever been to fitting himself for a straight jacket, and he was still pretty sane. This was a place where he could reflect on what he felt and what he thought he knew without Gimpy's fanboy ramblings, Cal's moronic self, or Rocko's suggestions of booze.

Jesse was ill and it was likely his fault. If he had just left the party with her, gone back to her dorm and helped her pack '…along with anything else she may have wanted to do', Nitz thought with a small smile, then they would be writing letters, email, talking by phone and such instead of all this "darkness and doubt" as they say.

And to top it all off, some strange spirit or something was somehow involved, which went against the rationalistic Walsh mindset… but fit perfectly with his mothers side, always telling stories of elves and dwarves and wizards both good and evil not simply as stories but almost as a long buried family history. And hell, with gargoyles in New York City that spent the day as pigeon perches along with all the other strangeness the States megaopolis had produced over the years, why not curses and demons too?

A small, red rubber ball rolled towards him, into his downward field of view. Nitz picked it up and examined it in a kind of numb bewilderment, until he heard the pitter-patter of small sneakers on the grass. He looked up… and nearly blew several synapses when he saw what he did.

It was a small girl coming to fetch her ball… the SAME girl that Jesse had seen in fact (only he don't know that… yet). Anyway, the girl stared at the ball, then at him with her hands held out with the look and manner of the proverbial child, the person who still sees the world as a place of joy where fairness counts for something.

It was fortunate that this was Nitz we were talking about here.

He handed the ball back to her, and after giving him one of those adorable smiles that small children are seemingly pre-programmed to give, she ran back over the grass towards a woman. This woman was most likely the girls' mother, and I'll be buggered if she didn't look really familiar. Her hair wasn't long but not especially short either, shoulder length really, but it was her face that drew his conclusion for him.

It _was_ Jesse, about a decade older but still recognizable. And the girl... Nitz did not know if it was the hair or the eyes or whatever, but something made the corners of his mouth lift into the kind of silly smile that usually gets associated with doctors, wailing infants and the distribution of dimestore cigars.

But soon enough even this smile faded to be replaced with a feeling of tremendous guilt, regret and sorrow. He remembered the way Jesse had ranted and yelled at him, and recalled the vision of her pale face. By this time his vision had gone, but something else, something tugging at the back of his brain resisted the urge to sit and sulk any longer, suggesting instead doing something constructive. He stood up, straightened his cap and jacket, took a deep breath… and ran as fast as his legs could carry him back towards the house.

He had something to do… namely to find Jesse and beg, nay, _grovel _for forgiveness.

* * *

It wasn't that Anne Walsh disliked her feet; it was just that without careful maintenance she'd never be able to wear shoes, or socks for that matter, comfortably. Every week or two she trimmed and shaved the fine tousle of hair that grew on the tops of her feet, as well as soaking her feet and rasping the hard, horny skin from the soles with a pumice stone. 

She raised her head as her son came rushing up the back steps, through the kitchen, leaped over the living room sofa and went headlong into the den across the hall to dig out State U's phone number. At least he was doing something constructive now.

**Soon...**

Nitz picked up the old table phone in the living room and dialled the number for the Campus Records office. "Yes, I'd like to request the address for a female freshmen that resided in Chilton Hall this year." They asked for a name, and there something hit Nitz like a ton of Maine field stone: Jesse had never even told him her last name, let alone much about her hometown save the odd vague reference. "Well… she lived on the third floor, Room 568… She was the one with knife collection."

That immediately caught the bureaucrats' attention, and he stated that the weapons in that room had been registered to one Jessica Kingson (he 'explicitly remembered'). "Well, what's her address?"

The clerk put him on hold for a minute, went to the files, but when he came back he had some unusual news for Nitz. "I'm sorry sir, but that information seems to be… well, blacked out."

"What do you mean 'blacked out'?" asked Nitz testily.

"I mean that all relevant information has been covered with solid black marker, most strange in my opinion. Although it DOES say here that she has a brother attending as well." The bureaucrat explained, as bewiltered as Nitz was.

"Well, thank you anyway." Nitz sighed and slouched back in the armchair as he hung up the phone. Jesse had a brother and she never even bothered to introduce the two off them, or even tell him. And her family… what could POSSIBLY merit the blackout on her records? 'Well, on to powers higher than Campus Administration' Nitz thought as he went to rummage for the Blue Pages i.e. government listings.

**Lindon, Orleans County, May 16th, Dinnertime **

"Thank you for dinner, Elrond, Celebrian. It was a BIT spicy, but excellent nonetheless." Gandalf wiped his mouth, now silently wishing that Legolas and Gimli had NEVER brought back those bell peppers from one of their 'excursions'. This body wasn't made for Chicken Mole, or any kind of spicy food. Actually, the chief reason he enjoyed these invitations to dinner here was that the food, being either ethnic Noldor, a Mandarin/Cantonese amalgam or a mix of both, was light, well balanced and did not burn a hole in his stomach.However, when Celebrian had made this admitingly delicious Mexican food, he couldn't very well turn it down.

He now had another very important appointment to keep… down the hall and in the third room on the right.

Meanwhile, Jonah had brought Jesse her food as well as some bacon rind scrounged up for Chalk. As he sat back down after refilling his glass from the bedside pitcher, he eyeballed the residue of what he had just eaten, unsure of what it had been exactly except that it had chicken, peppers and baking chocolate in the same dish.

This meal was entirely for Jesse's benefit; she having the most extreme tastes in the whole family, likely a result of her stubborn refusal to scrap any of her early attempts at cooking, and the only thing they hadn't thoroughly tested to break this funk. One could say she had an iron stomach, although a mithril one would have been preferable, for hard liquor rusted it to no end.

Jesse had started saying (as well as eating) less and less over the past weeks, until she only communicated with nods and shakes of the head or feeble hand gestures. This was a bad omen if any indeed existed, and Mithrandir STILL had no forthcoming news of where this Nitz person lived. This was getting out of hand… her emotions were beginning to spread throughout the commercial district like some exotic plague: elflings were running fevers, adults were sneezing and the general atmosphere from the Eld-Tech facility to the butcher shop on Branch Street was that of a mid-winter malaise… in May.

Jonah looked up, and saw that Jesse had stopped eating, and considering that the plate was more than half-done and she was sitting on the side of her bed as well, this seemed to be a positive sign. Jesse even managed to pick up said plate and her glass and point them towards her brother, which gave Jonah newfound hope for her recovery. He took her glass, amazed at the sudden return of her motor skills.

The plate wasn't nearly so lucky.

Jesses' eyes suddenly closed and she collapsed backwards; dropping her plate in such a way that it splattered Chicken Mole all over Jonahs' trousers, hit the floor at the precise angle for it to crack in half, and one half skidded under the bed. Diseases (or emotions playing the part) are kind of funny like that sometimes, the patient showing an almost unnatural control of their faculties before the big comatose plunge. All signs were there now; wan complexion, shallow breathing, sheen of cold sweat and a sharp turn to the dramatic. After staring at the mess on his trousers, Jonah did one of the most important things a brother can do: he screamed at the top of his lungs.

"**MOM! DAD! SOMEONE! HELP!" **

These things were indeed heard, bouncing off solid granite walls, and no sooner than Elrond, Gil-Galad and their respective spouses rushed off to answer this plea, the toilet flushed. Gandalf came out and, doing up his breeches and rushed behind them. When he saw Jesse's affliction, he came to a decision.

"I'm borrowing the car!"

A flabbergasted Noldo king pulled himselfaway from the room torush after the irate Istar as Elrond began calling for his medical knick-knacks. Once outside, Gandalf knocked out the driver-side window of red station wagon with one swift jab of his staff, did a six-second hot-wire (terribly easy to do with a bit of mithril wire and some 3-month old Juicy Fruit gum) and was in the front seat, revving.

"Where are going with our car?" shouted Ereinion as Gandalf slammed the door.

"I'm getting the Boy!" shouted Gandalf as he raced off through a still open inner gate to Crown Street Square and down Ash Boulevard. And soon enough, the King of this little fortified farming and tech town in upstate New York was on the horn COMMANDING that they get thatdamn gate open before the wizard drove right through it.

And, in a grove of young maples outside the city gates, an observer made a very different kind of call to people opposed to Nitz ever getting here.

* * *

As you may or may not have guessed, this is where the excitement begins. 


	6. As the Nazgul flies

Morgoths Bane 6

Description: There comes a time in every males life where he has to lay his soul bare… Nitzs' time has come. Meanwhile, Namo tries to burn himself like a bad pot roast but will end up with everyone owing him money. And finally the Great Funk of 2001 lifts from Lindon, accompanied by a wrecked car for good measure. And lastly, the eternal challenge is once more met: Who shall stand between the Nazgul and its prey?

Guest Appearances By Terry Pratchetts Anthropomorphic Personification of Death and the Grim Squeaker

Disclaimer: I hear NOTHING! I see NOTHING! I own NOTHING!

Authors apology: Dear and gentle readers, it turns out that the lake north of the elven town is Lake Ontario, NOT Lake Erie. I am truly sorry for the mix-up, having led you to believe that the locations are further west then they really are and/or in Ohio. Have to bone up on my Geography

**Ithaca, New York, May 16th, the Walsh Residence sometime around Evensong**

Nitz gave a thrice-exasperated sigh as he put the phone down and began burrowing into the couch. As far as he could tell from his calls to the IRS, the Census Bureau and several of the Post Offices more secretive branches, most of the information on Jesse's family was classified beyond all common sense. Their taxes were paid via a post office box in Batavia; personal histories sounded so normal that they had to be falsified and all their files were heavily censored except for names: Gilbert Kingson, Janice Liang Kingson, Jonah Kingson and finally Jesse.

'So this is it.' Thought Nitz 'Jesse is sick, I'm turning into a basket case and I haven't heard from Kimmy since I got back. I am officially screwed.'

Nitzs' parents were watching their son from the kitchen. This was the official low point in their sons' condition. "You know, this is your sisters fault." Said Patrick.

"And why would you say that?" Asked Anne, knowing that while her sisters could be blamed for many things, she never liked to admit it when family was involved on both ends.

"Well, they have been sending him all those letters to settle down and find a girl since he turned 18. That's enough to drive any man batty; it did it to me!"

"They're just worried about the Thainship, what with dads' health not being what it once was, his glaucoma and all." This _was_ getting a bit grating. Patrick had never understood how important the title was inside her family, and she'd be damned if he'd start now.

Neither of them noticed in their 'discussion' the sound of a car screeching to a halt in front of the house. It took the sound of several failed attempts to batter down the front door to draw them out of it, and it even managed to rouse Nitz. The battering stopped, but two beats later a sword slashed down through the door, sending splinters flying and sending a mangled lock clattering to the floor.

A swift staff and a kick from a foot clad in white leather broke what remained from the frame, and in stepped the White Rider. The wizard rushed in, entered the living room, saw Nitz, promptly dragged him to his feet, and was back out the door before the parents could react.

"Hey, where are you taking me?" Cried the befuddled Parker as Mithrandir pushed him into the passenger seat and closed the door.

Gandalf got into the drivers seat, buckled up, but stopped long enough for a short, and extremely rushed, explanation. "Long story short, Jesse is ill and YOU are part of the cure." There was a comically elongated pause until Nitz gave one, short, sharp word, and probably the only order he had given in his entire life.

"Drive."

Back in the house, Patrick slowly picked up the phone and called the police. There had apparently been a kidnapping.

**Later... Sunset, coming up on the Orleans County line, 8 miles from Lindon**

"So, you're saying that Jesse, underneath all the hair dye, the attitude and the drinking isn't even fully human?" Nitz was dumbfounded at this new information.

Gandalf looked sideways at Parker as they sped along the gravel road still wet from a spring rain. "You're saying that like it's a bad thing! Besides, you'd never know it without a genetic profile… and a calendar. Her fathers' family is of the highest pedigree after all."

"Really?"

"Yep, they were bred like dogs." Gandalf jested as they sped forward (1). They drove on, and soon came over a ridge a mile or two from the town; with that Nitz saw Jesse's home for the first time.

A great spine of granite rose from the ground, looking ancient and proud and almost completely natural (2), with one of its points facing him and on its left a wall that seemed to encircle the town. Beyond the walls, stretching out towards the hordwood forests were fields and orchards occasionally dotted with windmills; some with quaint roadside stands for those who managed to find the place. This image of grandeur and the thought of seeing Jesse again made Nitz mark every detail of the scene in his mind.

If only they had been paying the same kind of attention twenty-three minutes ago to a faint leathery flapping sound behind them.

An incredibly high-pitched scream, a shriek if you will, that sounded like the ripping of steel, like the voices of death (3) split the air, the evening calm and very nearly Nitzs' eardrums. Following this noise was the bellow of something better left forgotten, and the whine of jet engines. To any far off observers, two fast moving 'hover bikes' could be seen closing in from either side, peppering the ground beside the car with high-velocity projectiles, effectively penning them in. They would have also seen what had made that dreadful noise: a tall slouched form draped all in navy blue robes riding what looked like a reptilian buzzard.

Whilst Nitz was busy covering his ears and screaming in primordial fear, Gandalf assessed the situation. They were being chased by what amounted to a living nightmare astride a giant hybrid of a bat and a snake, and were being hemmed in by two aerial attack vehicles. That presented him with two choices: keep the car intact and probably get tortured and slain horribly, or practice the arts learned 'at the driving schools of Blues, Duke and Knight Bus Lines' and risk the royal families anger at destroying this car.

He chose the latter.

While the wall guards were hauling a pair of those new-fangled particle accelerator sniping guns up onto the cornices, the car made a series of swerves, reverses and hairpin turns worthy of Elwood Blues (notice I'm using _Blues Brothers_ references, huh?), finding new ways out of the line of fire and the reach of the beasts talons. Eventually the flying snake did actually manage to sink its talons into the roof and windshield of the car, but the driver also had a contingency plan.

While the Noldorin marksmen used their legendary aim to down both pilots with one shot each, sending one of them to crash, cartwheel and explode into a field of ripening cabbage and the other to mow off the upper branches of a row of apple trees before crashing into a pumpkin patch (saving the corpse and vehicle for later identification), Gandalf used the wraiths distraction to screw off the top quarter of his staff, and with the twist of a discreet knob, transformed the bulb into kind of a 'starlight grenade' complete with throwing handle. He leaned out the window and tossed it up into the harness of the saddle where it stuck.

The lightshow was _almost_ worth the screams.

The wraith was so affected that it inadvertently pulled back the reins, sending its mount up too fast to keep the car aloft… tearing the roof off.

Gandalf and Nitz would have seemed to be home free, but the thing decided to pull out its long-ranged option. The wraith aimed an exceeding large crossbow with an almost artillery grade bolt (probably tipped with something nasty) at Nitz and fired. Luckily, an already jerky steering column chose that moment to tilt the car slightly to the right and the bolt missed both occupants… instead driving right through the dashboard and neatly severing the brake line.

The Nazgul (for lack of a better title because rings have nothing to do with this) finally decided that being this close to a large concentration of elvish power was too much for it, and veered off away from the town with the requisite screech. The only thing that Nitz and the wizard could do now was drive at full speed toward the Elm Street Gate, hoping it would be opened in time. And to the credit of the Noldor manning the gate and a modernized system of counterweight locks, they did get it open with nary a creak of resistance, just in time for a hunk of twisted steel (going 110 mph in a residential zone) to speed past, onward towards Kingson Manor.

**Meanwhile in the Halls of Mandos…**

Namo, Doomsman of the Valar, was blind. He had been blinded for the better part of five years thanks to a booby-trapped spirit of a Noldo sent to his halls. If it were only the eyes of mortal sight that were affected, that could have been alleviated by having his eternal sight help him avoid tripping over things. But secondly, and much more importantly, his seeing of the fates of the world had also gone bye-bye, rendering him prone to tripping over errant objects and unable to see anything that had happened, was happening or was going to happen.

This had led to a slow depression at this apparent lack of purpose, and had finally culminated in being told that the Féa of the Bane was slipping from existence. He was gloomy, nihilistic; you could even say suicidal… which might explain why he was standing atop a stack of cargo pallets pouring gasoline over his head. Irmo stood nearby, fire extinguisher in hand, shaking his head at the thought of the fire singing that expensive death shroud cloak of his brothers'.

**Even further in the Meanwhile, somewhere in the spectral beyond…**

On a crystalline ledge above a river of blue incandescence, a female figure was coming to the conclusion that this was probably her untimely end. Her fingers slipped on the smooth quartz-like stuff, but according to an obscure bylaw of narrative suspense, a ridge of what looked like actual rock caught both hands as they slid, postponing the plunge. The figure risked a look below, but saw only her dangling feet and the flowing river of electric blue energy, the place separating the legs of the Trouser of Time. If fingers slipped or ledge cracked and crumbled, the fall would send her out of this path into a different leg, therefore never having even the chance for her exist in this timeline.

The one referred to simply as 'The Bane', or 'The Objective' in some circles, was slipping from existence… literally.

**Back in Lindon**

The roofless car sped west down Elm Boulevard, dodging the bicycle traffic (4) and sending bystanders diving into doorways and garden until it turned left at Crown Street and followed the curve of the inner wall. Upon reaching Crown Street Square, only driving in a series of looping spirals got them through the inner gate.

"JUMP!" shouted Gandalf as he himself leapt from the car. Nitz took the hint, bailing out as the speeding car began to tip (or was that flip?) over. It landed on what was left of its roof even as the wizard hustled the confused young man across the drive to the base of the stairs.

Perhaps now is the time to describe the layout of the manor in detail. From the front door you enter the great hall, complete with tapestries and a set of chairs at the far end of the room (not thrones, just wicker armchairs). From either corner of the far side, two hallways curve down to a dining hall that can seat twenty. To either side of the dining room is a hallway leading to those guest rooms with a view (facing south) or those that actually keep you cool in the summer and warm in the winter (deep in the rock) along with the quarters of Elrond's sons and the other staff. At the back of the room, past the kitchens with the open buffet styling and the mine-like cold cellars, the stairs to the recreation area spiralled upward.

The recreation room, admitingly, was a bit strange because the king had never learned the unwritten rule of hunting: mount the small game WHOLE. Mounted on the walls were the heads of every licensed animal in the area, from a lost moose and deer to turkeys, opossums, racoons and even animals as small as squirrels and the birds they made the Yule savoury pies from. Also connected to this room was the wide southern facing balcony above the main doors and the household library along one wall.

If you ignored the stairway and the subsequent crimes against taxidermy, you happen upon the hall into the living quarters. The Master bedroom is on the left as you enter, with the butlers (and heralds, and doctors, and former nannies) and maids quarters (the other resident couple) on the right. Further in is a supply closet and dry goods pantry opposite each other, and then the bathroom (mentioned previously) followed by a T-junction. Taking the left branch in a hall lit by smoked glass lamps you reach an open door, the room of a certain mortal daughter with serious grief issues.

This is where we rejoin Nitz on his awkward run. Upon entering the room he saw three things: first, several men with pointed ears hovering by a bedside and chanting in what sounded like three different languages at once, the second was the multitude of hanging...well, one _could_ call them talismans, but really they were more like more robust versions of those crystal things made out of low-grade quartz you find in meditation shops. The third of course was Jesse, lying prone in bed, a film of sickly perspiration on her brow that suggested she was not only at the gates of death, but had found that the buzzer hadn't worked, accidentally broken the lock, looked around the grounds and was now debating whether or not to knock.

They probably couldn't have stopped Nitz from pushing his way through to her. Them: creatures of ancient learning and lore (5) and they couldn't stop a young man who was probably half-insane with grief from rushing forward, collapsing to his knees by the bedside and began mumbling in an incoherent and frantic manner: probably just wishing and praying to whatever deities that happened to be passing by that he could hear her voice, see her grin and be able to tell her… just to _tell_ her.

And as the Lady might have it in these million to one chance dealies, someone WAS listening… although he couldn't rightly be called a deity. He was only a part of life that came to all creatures wherever their spirits dwelled.

He was the End of it.

**Sequence of Events beyond Mortal Eyes**

It can probably be said, with a certain professional air (that usually came with being the faculty of either of the two schools in the multiverse that taught magic and ate big dinners) that a great many things happened at once.

In the Halls of Waiting, Namo lit a match and let it fall onto the pallets. Fire roared up his body from his dripping shoes to the strip of bandage that covered his eyes. And as soon as it appeared, it was extinguished by a jet of compressed fire retardant wielded by his brother.

In that strange space among the loose change in the ripped pockets of the Trousers of Time, the Banes grip had finally obtained the feel of a greased sardine. She began to plummet, only for one flailing hand to be grasped by a friendly (if slightly skeletal) grip.

She looked up, and saw that this hand of yellowed bones disappeared inside a black sleeve, which was connected to a figure laying flat on the ledge wearing a void-black robe and cloak. Framed by a deep hood was a skeletal head, looking strangely… animated by two pinprick spots of blue fire flaring out from the centre of the eye sockets and an almost unnatural grin on the jaw.

Beside this head was a similar, but much smaller figure that appeared to be basically a rat skeleton in the same clothes. In it's bony paws it supported the frames of two different hourglasses, one where the top was far from empty, and another where all the sand was stuck to the top, nowhere near the middle. The skeletal rodent squeaked something to his larger companion.

NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT, THIS _IS _THE EARLIEST I'VE EVER MET SOMEONE.

Death, as personified by these two characters (having been called to assist after Namo was blinded), was usually responsible for carting the souls off the passed on too a new destination. It was also required, in rare circumstances, to meet with those whose time was not yet reached and clear things up one way or another.

This was one such circumstance.

**Jesse's POV**

The darkness was cold, clammy and chilled Jesse to the bone. It was cold like the grave, like the void where dark and vicious things dwelled for all their days.

In the dark however, one single word resounded. It wasn't so much _heard _as it was felt by her very soul.

AWAKEN

Existence found it's way back to her as warmth and feeling began returning to her body.

Pathways tingled and itched as the brain remembered that it was connected to a spinal cord, to limbs, and eventually fingers and toes. Muscles twitched, skin felt the slight eveningdraft through the comforter and Jesse even began to receive signals from her ears and nose… most prominently the smell of her hair dye, generic shampoo and cap canvas as well as the sound of a very familiar voice muttering very close to her head. She began to open her eyes, trying to remember what she had drank _this time_ to put her in this state.

One of the first things she saw was the top of a blue denim cap, and was able to make out the voice and its words: mostly her own name and saying he was sorry. She couldn't believe it… but who else could smell that way with all those little trace doors: the shampoo, the ghosts of simple food in large portions, even his breath and sweat?

It was him. He was here at last but it wouldn't hurt to make sure.

"Nitz?"

**Nitzs' POV**

"Nitz?"

Our protagonist froze, hesitant to believe what he had just heard lest it be the swan song of an already shaky psyche. He looked up into Jesse's face… her eyes were open. Two more lustrous gems, he thought, could nae be found in all the worlds' width and breadth, or any clearer glass ever blown (thank the gods for compulsory poetry in high school), or at least that was Nitzs' opinion.

(The author would like to take this moment to take out a hankie with which to wipe his eyes and blow his nose)

Nitz, lost in his revelry just he had been all those years ago in his dreams, got quite the startle as two people jerked him up by his armpits and promptly held knives to his throat. Glancing sideways she saw two hauntingly familiar sets of silver irises staring at him with the same flavour of contempt someone might hold for a dog they just caught piddling on their exotic Japanese Chrysanthemums. Only two groups of people could look at people that way: rat catchers and the secret service.

There weren't a lot of rats around hear that Chalk hadn't already claimed as his to ranch and slaughter.

"Release him!" A voice commanded. Nitz looked forward to see that one of the kneeling men had stood (the slightly shorter one).

"But Adar…" they said almost in the same voice and Nitz now took he time to see that they were twins.

The man raised his hand for silence. "He awoke our lords daughter and cured her sickness when I could not: does that not entitle some courtesy, especially to a guest of the White Wizard?" The stern… well, Nitz could infer that he was a medic of some sort from his previous comment… nodded to where Gandalf was leaning on the doorframe catching his breath.

A noticeable change in the air had taken place, changing from the depressing mugginess of the last few weeks to the normal mood of a Noldorin enclave balancing on the edge of summer. The Wizard even sighed in relief that this trial was over, then looked up… and noticed something.

Jesse noticed her staring at her. She sat up and placed a hand to balance herself on her pillow but found it rather… well, wet. She brought her hand around to examine and found that the palm was covered with a thin purple residue that had come from the mess soaking into her pillow.

Elrond's healing things had been designed to help drive every poison, parasite, disease and general foreign substances from her body to help the healing process.

This list also included hair dye by the looks of it.

* * *

1. It _did_ turn out rather pathetic and contrary to the severity of the situation, but when one is in a hurry, ice-breakers never go as planned 

2. Although it was in fact a sliver of one of the lesser Pélori blown apart by the Teleri in a failed mining venture (rained rock for a good thirty or forty minutes)

3. Figuratively. In reality Death TALKS LIKE THIS

4. Because having cars would necessitate petrol stations, which would mean bringing in the refining companies, which would of course lead to them asking _questions_

5. And not at all related to those faerie bastards poking their sadistic noses through that stone circle in Lancre


	7. Home Life

Morgoths Bane 7

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything so don't bother suing me… you'd just get the lawyers worked up for nothing.

Note: this chapter will be more laid back than the last, more on introducing Jesse's hometown including the schools, the businesses, and a little arcade/soda shop run by an elf that took eight years to develop a French fry that's pretty damn tasty (I thank Tim Gueguen for that liitle nugget of story). Also an introduction to those "Noldorin bitch princesses" mentioned in chapter 3 (and learn why saying the word 'Easterling' in this town can get you kicked out of most parties). This particular chapter begins awkwardly… for Nitz and Jesse that is.

Basically, Nitzs' brain goes Rincewind for a little bit.

* * *

**Lindon, Orleans County, May 17th a little before Dawn**

Parker Eugene Walsh (aka Nitz), a sedentary homebody who had taken three weeks to get a decent night of sleep in his own dorm, had been sleeping peacefully in a bed in a room carved out of a huge granite sliver more than a hundred miles from home… a strange occurrence if there ever was one.

He was also one of the only four (five if you count the wizard) people in this town who were or could pass for human upon casual inspection. As he sat upright in a bed not his own, he wondered how in the world he got swept into this. This town had elves, ELVES! With the pointy ears and the hippie hair and the eyes that could see right into a guys head and back out his ears (1). And Jesse was one of them… well, half of one, on her fathers side if he had his facts straight.

Something broke Nitz from this line of dazed thought. The faint sound of song, untrained and wavering but having the same melody and tone that he had heard from Jesse in her sleep, wafted through the halls. Our young protagonist swung his legs off the bed, slipped into the complimentary slippers, put on the free housecoat and opened the door.

Gandalf was standing in the doorway opposite his.

Nitz met the wizards' gaze in the grey light of the pre-dawn streaming in from the window behind Gandalf. "And where might you be going at this early hour, Parker Patrickion (2)?" Gandalf tilted his head to hear the song. "Going to hear the choir, eh? Well, the acoustics are better on the balcony. If you hurry you can get to the staircase before the day guard comes on."

Nitz got the hint, and proceeded to sneak along the corridor. Indeed, there were no guards by the kitchen, and he found his way up the stairs easily. The music moved more freely on the airy balcony. Nitz leaned on the stone railing, listening to the novice singing.

As strange as it sounded, being in this place, so far from home and as abnormal as one such as him could imagine, brought on a sense of peace and restfulness. Even more surprising after almost having his throat cut by a pair of overprotective twins and having to calm his hysterical mother over the phone.

Maybe it was the Elves; after all, his grandfather always did say that they were a mysterious and magical folk and generally amiable. And that song was their greatest skill, even having it in their creation myths.

By the sound of it though, these Elves and a _long_ way to go before they were that good.

The sound of another set of slippers padding across the stone barely got a response from Nitz, even when Jesse settled beside him. He dared a sideward glance at her to check something that had been bubbling in his head: she DID look better without the dye job.

Jesse turned her head and met his gaze. "Yes?" Nitz jerked his head back quickly, holding a faint hope that she hadn't noticed.

"So…" he at last began sort of shakily. "This sure is a nice town you have here. Why didn't you ever tell me about it?" At this, Jesse grew somewhat peeved.

"Yeah, why not? Tell the whole world that my hometown is crammed to the gills with elves, and not only that, but reveal that I'm not even fully human! That would've made me VERY popular with the biology department!" She slumped her head and seemed to calm down a bit. "Look, I'm sorry but I'm still a little... tired." The pair fell back into an awkward silence.

"So…" began Nitz again. "Who're these guys singing?"

"It's the high school choir... and by high school, I mean 14 to 20 year olds.. Some people play sports, some people cheerlead… Jonah and me got into singing." Replied Jesse blandly.

"Jonah… isn't that the guy your roommate was stalking? Your brother, right?" Nitz inquired

Jesse looked at Nitz for a minute in a way that said 'how the hell did you know that' but answered his question nonetheless "Yeah, he's my brother. I never mentioned him because of the… ear thing we have around here. How did you even know I had a brother anyway?"

"I… did some research: I was worried about you! And it's not like a didn't _want_ to go help you pack, I just …couldn't." Jesse just began a fit of snorting laughter at the mention of 'packing'.

"I know… Mithrandir told me about that thing inside your head. But why would anyone put it there in the first place? What would they possibly gain from you drooling over Kimmy Burton?" It occurred to both of them (separately) that what this mystery person would probably get is the noticeable lack of a certain little girl with Nitzs' hair and her chin.

"What was this about you and singing?" Asked Nitz, remembering the original thread of their conversation

"Well, it isn't compulsory, but since we're such 'high profile members of the community' we joined anyway… for a while at least. Our teacher said that 'human vocal cords can't wrap themselves around the words properly' or something like that and then those arrogant, POMPOUS, STUCK UP, SNOT NOSED…"

Nitz was startled by this sudden outburst "Whoa, whoa, settle down a little. I'm sorry I asked." He inclined his head upward. "But you don't sing THAT badly. I mean, when I heard you, you sounded great."

Jesses' head slowly turned the same way as his and asked very slowly "When… and where… did you hear that?" Nitz became just a bit frightened and embarrassed in his next, stammering explanation under her stare. "When… we were… cohabitating (the poor lads mental blockers honed in on the word "bunking") I… heard you… in your sleep."

It was Jesses' turn to become embarrassed, hiding her reddened face in her hands and half laughing in embarrassment. "Oh God, I thought I didn't do that anymore! Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"Well, your regular roommate was a nutcase obsessing over your brother and I was too scared, bewildered or possessed to mention it to you. Sound plausible?" answered Nitz relatively smoothly, having been calmed by this outburst of embarrassed laughter.

"Strangely enough, it does." Re-replied the now chuckling female.

The ice had been broken.

"So…" began Nitz in a more conversational manner "Could you maybe… translate what they're singing, if it doesn't stir up any more bad memories I mean."

Jesse thought for a moment or two than looked to Nitz and answered, "Sure, it sounds like the next song is coming up so I can start from scratch." She craned her head out to listen, but opened the eye closest to him to quip "This one sounds like it's going to be in Quenya, so I'll have to rely a bit on memory too. Okay?"

"Sure." Nitz couldn't exactly remember at the moment what 'Quenya' was, but it sounded difficult.

She began translating.

"I sang of leaves… of leaves of gold… and leaves of gold there grew…"

Nitz could nary believe it: This was something straight out of one of his Mothers bedtime stories!

"Of wind I sang… a wind there came... and in the branches blew."

Nitz was beginning to believe the situation: not only was this the most poetic translation he had ever heard outside that history lecture on the Hindu Vedas, but the person saying it was one of the most beautiful women he had ever known and a friend he would do anything for… especially now when his longings belonged to him and him alone.

"Beyond the sun… beyond the moon… the foam was on the sea…"

Nitzs' gaze began sidling towards who he was more and more beginning to think of as 'his' girl… although if she ever heard him phrase it as such, whatever that wraith had planned for him would probably look like a picnic.

"And by the strand of Ilmarin... there grew a Golden Tree."

The young mans gaze moved downward. His mental safeguards, honed to a razor edge by years of secretly trying to keep their host away from a certain fiery-headed do-gooder, screamed in abject terror at his actions. They were sure that even the inklings of the thoughts now brewing in the midbrain would bring down the wrath of two sets of silver eyes that were Elrond's twin sons. If they caught him staring at the curves on the body of the kings' daughter, death would probably be the least of his worries.

By the time this train of thought had finished, so had the song.

"But if of ships I now should sing… what ship would come to me… what ship would bear me ever back across so wide a sea?"

Jesse lowered her head, turned towards Nitz… and then noticed where he was staring.

"Nitz?" He noticed it, and snapped back to attention, his eyes frozen forward in a desperate, instinctive ploy not to attract attention.

Jesse got a strange little look on her face and asked in a curious tone "Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?"

"No, no, not at all. Why would you think that?" replied Nitz in the quick, terrified voice that signified that he was either going to jump out of his skin or into a very cold lake.

"Well…" Began Jesse "I _thought_ you were thinking what breakfast was going to be."

Jesses' general ambience became… electric. Although one could say that sexual magnetism was one thing she radiated on a regular basis (3), she seemed to be attempting to amp it up by a degree of several hundred and was generally succeeding. "So…" she asked in a voice that hinted at the types of things that Nitz had only dreamed of up to this point. "What _were_ you thinking of?"

Nitz, by this point, had passed so far beyond rational thought, beyond even the primordial, brain-melting terror that the wraith had struck into him, that he needed a shock to the system to begin breathing properly again. He didn't have to wait long.

Jesse kissed him on the cheek.

The sun had risen during their conversation, bringing a bright new day to the town and an excellent opportunity for sightseeing.

"Breakfast should be getting started by now. We should get going." Taking Nitz gingerly by the hand, she began to lead the staggering, sputtering, generally limp young man down to the dining room.

When they arrived, Elrond's sons gave Nitz the kind of look that questioned exactly _why_ he was beyond the kitchens, assumedly in the living quarters and promised a quick and painless death if he confessed right now. The Royals were in a significantly better mood, Gil Galad even having the look of someone who was back on schedule (albeit a schedule where he didn't know anything but that there _was_ a schedule). Janice Kingson, five feet of motherly concern, gripped Nitzs' arm and plopped him down in a chair, Jesse taking the one beside him.

And Mithrandir… was whistling. It was the innocent, low-key whistle of someone who had something to hide and wasn't fooling anyone. After the breakfast had been spread out, a collection of fruit, fruit sauces and thin, crispy breads, (4) things settled down, the twins having got a stern look from Elrond to stop glaring. As breakfast got underway, Jesse made a minor announcement. "I'm going to show Nitz around town today, you know, the schools, the shops, the businesses… that sort of thing."

"That sounds like an excellent idea." Her father managed between dipping his cinnamon lembas in a plum sauce, drinking something that smelled vaguely of rose water and crunching on apple slices. "Jonah will accompany you off course…" Jesse looked slightly disappointed. "As will Elladan and Elrohir." Jesse actually looked alarmed at this, knowing their first impression of the young man.

Nitz picked up a thin crisp and bit into it. He could learn to like this place… if he could survive it.

**Somewhat Later…**

"Nice." Nitz examined the clothes that the staff had laid out for him. Over a standard undershirt and rather plain pants, he wore one of those futuristic unisex tunic dealies, all subdued greys and blues with the fasteners at the back and going to just below the knee. He also wore shoes with zippers on them, but we won't get into that now.

Jesse, on the other hand, was wearing a more subdued version of what Nitz was mostly familiar with: a grey Yankees shirt with her red jacket and slightly less baggy pants "I thought you'd say that." Said Jesse. "The others should be ready by now, lets go."

Soon they were out in the courtyard, staring up at the huge wooden gate.

"So…" began Nitz. "How do we open it?" The twins had disappeared, partially to put Nitz at ease, but also to give him a false sense of security by watching him from a distance.

"We shout to the guards up top and hope that they're awake." Said Jonah, coming up beside them. He was wearing another one of those tunics, this one shading between peacock and royal blue with golden edging and filigree. Chalk was perched oh his shoulder, having the special distinction of being the worlds only toilet-trained raven. As he was taking the deep breath, the mechanism inside the wall began to rumble and creak as the doors swung out away from them.

The sounds of men (male elves I mean) shouting were at first muffled, but grew louder as the gate opened more and more. Guards rushed to assist what was now seen as a team of Clydesdale draft horses pulling a low wagon bearing a large, covered load behind them, paired with what looked like a body under a sheet. Handlers, guards, and what sounded like a score of reporters that were being blocked by the guards surrounded the team and its load as it rumbled into the courtyard, and the general confusion allowed the trio to get out into the town.

The towns' layout was like this: imagine 8 concentric circles (from in to out: Crown, Canopy, Leaf, Branch, Trunk, Root, Earth and Stone Streets), cut them all in half and throw away one half, having the remaining semicircles facing south to catch the sun. Then, after you placed the manor inside the smallest half circle, place 7 roads radiating out from the original circles centre leading to seven gates in the outside wall. These boulevards, east to west, were lined with Elm, Willow, Oak, Ash, Pine, Cedar and Mallorn trees, and are named as such.

On Pine boulevard there is an outdoor market that takes place every 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month. The east side (Elm to Oak) is the residential zone, the centre (Oak to Pine) the business district with the Eldemar Technologies facility fading with a shopping district to the far west (Pine to Mallorn) that was mostly made up of warehouses, crop storage and public stables.

The high school was first. It wasn't very big for a town of 15000 (including outlying farms), having 600 students at most at one time, sometimes a little less. School was just getting in, so Nitz had to be careful about being stared at because of his ears and lack of familiarity, and was very suprised to see that the children of High school age were no more than... well, children. Then it was the shopping district, where there were many interesting doodads to see, and many proprietors very happy to see Jesse up and about. Also visited was the famed out of date movie theatre, now featuring Jurassic Park: The Movie. The Eldamar Technologies facility, easily the gem of the town, got a full tour.

Then they came to a little soda shop on Pine Boulevard up the road from the market stalls. It was a modest place: a few tables, mostly booths, with a few ancient Atari machines lining one wall beside an even more ancient pinball machine.

The owners name was Gale Matheson… well, that was the name on his social security card anyhow, his real name being of a language only half remembered even by the earliest recorded civilizations. It was also the only place in town where you could get your daily grease allotment in the form of burgers and fries.

The fries… every person that had been born after the towns founding (young though they may be) absolutely swore by them. Potato wasn't exactly a natural ingredient in the Quendi diet, mostly because it came from the shrouded lands (6) but it had found quite the place of distinction on the menus of the Prince and Princess, as well as that of a few sympathetic children of what could be called the aristocracy. The _unsympathetic_ ones… well, we'll meet them shortly.

Mr. Matheson was typical of the kind of person who had moved to this place: fed up with a bunch of First Age windbags and very young for an elf (not a day over 5000) and very accepting of the youngsters heritage (which some weren't). It had also taken him the better part of a decade to develop his French fry, from someone who had never seen a potato in his life to someone who could cook for the children of kings… or his king at least.

The three took their seats at a booth behind a row of planters and began to dig in to their lunch. Chalk had decided to take a break from his normal feast of rat to join them. "You were right: these fries ARE good." Said Nitz as he finished his tenth fry and took another bite of his burger.

The happy meal was broken however, when Jonah spied something through the front window. "Get Down!" whispered Jonah as he pushed Nitzs' head downward behind the planter and out of general view. Nitz, first annoyed, understood somewhat when he heard the door open and no footfalls followed.

"Well, if it isn't little miss round ear. It's good to see you up and about. We were beginning to miss your _stench_." Nitz knew that tone of voice: the haughty, venomous inflections that almost universally spelled 'bitch' (7). There had been enough of those back in Ithaca so that he knew the type, and now he knew why Jesse had gotten so angry talking about Music class. He looked, head still hunched, to the back of the shop: Even Gale was trying to hide!

Jonah stood up and chose to confront the brat. "Melanie, aren't you and your… _friends _supposed to be in school?" If there was one thing you could say about Jonah, it was that he was tall. At a healthy six feet nothing, his verticality was one of the only things inherited from his father's side, besides the tilt of his nose.

"We came for lunch." The sound of sniffing came again, and this time Nitz could almost imagine a haughty face raising her nose to take in the air. "Today, however… the smell is stronger: The smell of smoke and grease. What could be causing it I wonder? I knew humans stank but I never knew they set themselves on fire."

It was in anger that Nitz stood up and retorted to these baseless insults toward Jesse and her brother. "If you want to know, I have a friend who smokes almost constantly, and that grease could be coming from the kitchens for all you know!"

This abrupt appearance actually managed to shut Melanie...now idenrifiable as looking no older than an eight year old human, up. This didn't last long though, as Melanie raised an incredulous arm to point at him, her eyes now on Jesse, who was also standing. "A human… with you?" The snobbish elf-child settled down somewhat and became disdainful. "Well… it shouldn't have been a surprise. She goes with a mortal man and not very atteactive either. She'd only be following her fathers example after all!"

Jonah, along with everything else save Nitz, became increasingly tense, knowing where this would probably go. Even Melanie's cronies became a bit nervous at their leaders train of thought, having gotten suspended before for this exact same tirade. 'Imagine…" snarled the arrogant young woman. "Our so-called king, the last of his lineage, marrying and begetting children by a servant of the enemy! By… by… by an EASTERLING!"

This last word was the trigger that finally set things back in motion, chief among them Chalk, who flapped his wings and charged Melanie while screaming an ancient raven battle call that roughly translates to "Get away from this deer carcass you bastard or I'll pull your bloody tongue out". To this Melanie screamed and then fainted in fright. She'd never liked that bird for some reason.

Chalk simply landed beside her head and began croaking violently at her cronies. Jonah actually began coming around, forcing the girls to carry their leader out of the establishment by the arms.Hecame up to the raven and crossed his arms amusedly. "You really like doing things like that, don't you?" Chalk just croaked again, but this time almost smugly, before he began strutting back toward the washrooms. Even as Mr. Matheson came out of hiding in those self-same washrooms, he had to step aside for the strutting bird. As he stepped out, a toilet flushed in the background.

Back at the booth however, things had taken a turn for the worse. Jesse had once again fallen silent, while Nitz was trying to make sense of the meaning of that last shouted word. "Wow, what a brat. You weren't exaggerating when you got angry." Said Nitz in a moment of bewilderment.

Jesse remained quiet but finally muttered, "You heard what they said, about my mom?"

Nitzs' answer was remarkably blunt, having come straight from a history lecture "Yes, they called her an Easterling; the root word of the English 'sterling', given the popularity of Islamic coinage among early bankers and…"

Jesse just groaned and hung her head. "You wouldn't get it… its historical."

'Its _always_ historical with things like this.' Thought Nitz, sharing in her gloom. It was that moment, however, that he decided to make a calculated risk. Ever so slowly, he forced his arms to push his hands forward across the table towards Jesse's hands that were balled in buried rage. "Maybe I would understand…" began Nitz, his hands surrounding hers "If you could explain it."

Jesse, now realizing what Nitz was doing (i.e. trying to comfort her) just sighed and tried to rally her thoughts. She raised her head, and seeing his confused yet hopeful smile, she began. "Well… have you ever read the Silmarillion?"

"You could say that." Of course, Nitz was telling the truth, but "from a certain point of view". It's not often that oral history remembered from a book lost 85 years ago and published by an Oxford professor counts as 'not reading'. He'd also read it anyway.

"Then I guess it began during the Second Age. Everyone thinks that all of the original wraiths were from Numenor; you know, the 'Black Numenorians' who, while being rather pale, were corrupted by Saurons' trickery. '_Everyone_' would be wrong though. The wraith second in rank to the Lord of the Nazgul was named Khamul. He came from the east. How far east he lived isn't important. What matters is that from the beginning the dark powers had taken advantage of their ignorance of my fathers people."

Jesse sighed again. "They saw us… well the Quendi, as spirits and demons: beings that in their lore were uncontrollable, even dangerous. And they saw the men of the west as either allies of wild spirits or as brutal savages living among the woods. I know it's complicated, but where orcs were minions and the men of the south were largely enslaved or offered wealth; the men of the east were actually _allies_ of Sauron. And where the Haradrim made peace and the orcs disappeared, they were still lashing out when the last ship went over the sea."

Nitz, letting this all set in, thought of something in an uncharacteristically quick way. "Did they ever say where these guys came from, what their home was like?"

Jesse thought for a minute. "They mentioned nomads, "Wainriders" from the steppe beyond the sea of Rhun, but not much else."

"And where did your mothers family come from?" Nitz asked again, a sparkle coming to his eyes as an idea formed.

Jesse thought for a minute, going over old family stories heard when they used to visit her mothers parents on Manhattan Island. "Well, my grandmothers family lived in Guangzhou for at least 500 years, and my grandfather says he had family ties in Beijing since the time of the Mongol Emperors."

"Then it's settled!" proclaimed Nitz rather proudly. "You couldn't possibly be related, because those guys came from the plains, probably the south of modern Russia, Kazakhstan and so forth. China, on the other hand, is more a collection of large rivers and their valleys, and then you have the mountains, the forests and of course the big coastal cities you mentioned…" he stopped to catch his breath "at least that's what I hear. Any corrections you wanna make?"

Jesse, heartened by this argument, shook her head "No, you were right about the river valleys. The coastal cities developed a little late for the argument but on everything else you were pretty much spot on."

"Good." Said Nitz, his mind beginning to cloud over in the state of inebriated love that was more common to people 2 or 3 years his junior.

"Are we going to start eating again or do you two like cold burgers?"

This was Jonah, returned after seeing off Melanie and her lackeys. Nitz and Jesse, looked at him, then at their hands, still entwined, and then separated in a manner reminiscent of scalded alley cats. Jonah only laughed and settled back down beside his sister. The meal went on, but flirtatious activities did not cease. Whether hand feeding slices of pickle and fries or wiping errant globs of ketchup from the tips of noses, our two main characters were acting through and through like lovesick teenagers. '_Its actually quite sickening_' thought Jonah amusedly as he took the final bite of his burger. It was at that point, though, that he sensed something from under the table.

'Oh Éru… not footsies!'

And above the table, Elladan and Elrohir smiled the humourless smiles of people that saw things getting a lot more complicated than they should be, and a ceiling tile slid back into place.

**Meanwhile, in the Great Hall**

(All speech in this scene will be in Sindarin)

The remains of the first hoverbike were spread out on a canvas tarp on the stone floor, a charred corpse laid out beside it. It was mostly in pieces, and there just so the techs could take a gander at it and the forensics catalogue it. The intact vehicle was of much more interest to the King and his herald, as was the corpse.

The bike, a Cyberbiotics model from 1998, was painted an unimaginably dark shade that could have been intended to be blue but had tuned into bruise purple. It also had the sign of a circle of burnished brass with a hammer shape crossing one side to make a stylized "Q".

The corpse was wearing the same shade of purplish-blue dyed into ceramic composite body armour. This also included a flight mask that nothing short of a mallet and chisel had been able to remove. The face underneath was human… _basically_ human anyway. The face was thickly muscled with unusually high cheekbones, absolutely no hair and an almost skeletal looking lack of nose. Before rigor mortis set in and sealed the lips, Elrond could have even sworn that the beings teeth were… _sharp_.

"High altitude flyer most likely, and the techs say these things could probably achieve 600 mph, and an altitude of 4500 ft." Said Elrond, holding the flight mask from the intact corpse while conveying the information with a lot more interest than people in his line of work usually do. His intended audience, Gil Galad, was predisposed however, turning the deceased's weapon over and over in his hands. It was a sledgehammer, the head being a bit large and by no means garden variety. The whole construct was solid iron with a titanium shaft. It even began to hum violently and crackle with blue sparks when activated.

"What is it?" asked Elrond, finally tuned in to his lords' worry.

Gil Galad looked up, a look in his eyes Elrond had not seen since the dark days of the War of Wrath. The king uttered a single word, the worry and fear of ages apparent in his voice.

"Grond."

**And just for the hell of it…**

They came out of the sky, shrieking and searching for those that had eluded them the previous day. The students and faculty of the Brockport Campus of the State University of New York could only scatter and try to hide as wraiths on wings swooped low over the lawns, some not making it as a fell beast caught the occasional brown haired man or woman with purple dyed hair in its jaws or in its talons. The riders were also equipped with small, pump-action crossbows with poisoned bolts that they used with moderate accuracy and lethal effect.

Chilton Hall dormitory quickly became the focus of their search, the mounts poking their long, armoured necks though the windows that had been mapped to locate the targets dorm rooms. Crumbling brick and plaster fell away under the creatures' claws, as did roofing shingles as the roof sagged under the weight of the sentry.

In a dorm on the north side, a lone rider stood in the middle of the floor.

It was empty.

"Gone." The apparition snarled in a voice like the grinding of a mountain glacier. It unconsciously powered up its hammer. "GONE!" screamed the thing as it whirled around towards the lone desk, the scream devolving into a primordial shriek as it brought the hammer down on the unfortunate furniture, sending splinters flying in all directions.

They departed when they forced a terrified bureaucrat to reveal that the two they sought didn't do the spring term. They left in a flurry of wings and shrieks.

The casualties were 20 dead with 40 additional injured.

* * *

Boy, that must have been the longest chapter yet. 

I suspect the next one will be much shorter though.

1. Things had been somewhat exaggerated over the centuries and millennia

2. It's traditional in Sindarin to refer to a person as their fathers child i.e. Patrick: Nitzs' father and the Sindarin suffix –ion: literally "son of"

3. Along with burning anger and a sense of humour that could cheer an auditor.

4. The antithesis of Nitzs' usual fair of toast, cereal and eggs and meat fried in grease so old and full of burnt crunchy bits that it could have been captured from a Confederate mess hall (5).

5. Or from the fat geysers above the Schmaltzburg deep deposits in Uberwald

6. The ancient Americas (containing the ancestors of all tribes, clans and nations of Aboriginal America.) shrouded and shielded by the symbiote dimension containing the Undying Lands and its curtain, the Straight Road,

7. Not to be confused with female dogs of good temper and family


	8. Hearth and Hole

Morgoths Bane

Chapter 8

Disclaimer: It's a well-known fact that I do not own the characters described herein. They belong to the Tolkien Estate, Pete Williams, Greg Weisman and sundry others.

Description: Nitz goes home, Gandalf offers some romantic insight (well, tries to at any rate), Kimmy apologizes and a certain thrice-damned picture goes for kindling. Add in the amount of Lembas involved and some very interesting things start to come to light.

* * *

**May 22, Lindon, Orleans county, New York State**

Days came and days went, and sooner than either Parker or Jessica would have liked, the day came for him to go home. By mid morning a pair of horses, a bay and a roan, had been readied for the journey of several days (having to lay low by day) and Gandalf was helping him pack for the trip. More specifically, Gandalf was the one with the clipboard.

"Bedroll?"

"Check."

"Pillow?"

"Check."

"Travelling cloak and broach?"

"Double check." Said Nitz as he picked up the cloak and examined it. He was especially drawn to the broach: a representation of a Mallorn leaf in tiny tiles of jade and turquoise set in a silver frame. "You know, my grandfather has a broach just like this as an heirloom, though the edges are tarnished black."

"Really, which side?" asked the wizard as he checked the straps and buckles of his own pack.

"My moms. Her side has quite a few heirlooms actually: a dagger here, a helmet there, a few old books that no one can read anymore 'cause they're in auld Scots." Nitz threw the cloak over his shoulders and being fiddling at the broach.

"It's actually the reason I chose State and their European languages dept., because, as is tradition, every family patriarch has to read them aloud, start to finish without a single mistake as his first duty And apparently I'm next in line." He wedged his cap onto his head. "It's a bit archaic, I know, but its... important."

"Indeed." Said Gandalf again, noncommittally. Old thoughts began filling the Istars' head and he just had to ask something. "By the way, before that big flash of light hit you on the last night of the winter term, what thoughts were running through your head, by any chance?"

"Hmm? Oh, lots of things really." commented Nitz.

"Humour an old man and describe them if you please." Gandalf insisted jovially.

Parker looked at Gandalf and said, matter-of-factly "No you're not."

"You don't think I'm old?" To this the wizard looked almost flattered.

"I don't think you're a _man_. Human I mean"

Nitz picked up his pack and started going out. "Well, on top of everything else there was the overpowering need to be near Kimmy…"

"That we have already established to be caused by an especially nasty spirit." interjected Gandalf, still in high spirits.

Parker glanced sidlong at the wizard "Yeah… but besides that, there was... _something_, almost drowned out, telling me that there was _somewhere_ I would rather be. A fear, almost, or an inner voice trying to scream over a hurricane that was trying to pull me away. And then… no, you'd think I was crazy."

"Did not you think the same for all these weeks?" Asked the wizard as they entered the dining hall.

"Yeah." admitted the lad.

"Like I said, go ahead and humour an old… something."

Nitz sighed, breathed deeply and stopped. "For a moment… when I looked into Kimmy's' eyes… I thought I saw _flame_, not metaphorically but _real_ flames of orange and black dancing in them. And then the flame parted… and I saw Jesse. Strange words...jostled around inside my head as I beheld her. And she looked… _sad_. I'd never seen her like that; angry, yes… but never like _that_."

Gandalf smiled with an almost paternal concern for the young man. "It is not at all crazy. You only saw what you had to lose. Some dear friends once saw similar things gazing into a palantir."

They headed onward, Nitz with some confusion at the wizards' last word and it was that moment that Gandalf decided that genetic memory was indeed a bitch (1).

As they walked towards the front doors Nitz wondered if leaving was really such a good thing to do. The campus was a fraction of the distance from here than it was from his parents' house, and there was even an Internet café down on Ash Boulevard, so no trouble contacting the guys, not to mention the technology alone would give Gimpy a coronary. But… was it really the time? Sure, he and Jesse had much affection for each other, but living in the same town, and by necessity close together would cause a stir. People would _talk_. He would much rather wait until there was actually something to talk _about_.

Right now what he had to do was get home as fast as possible and get his parents to call off the manhunt.

But... _maybe_ he could accomplish _one_ last thing while he was still here: getting in good standing with the twins

The sun was shining bright and clearly in the east as wizard and man stepped out the great double doors. Guards divested of their helms and banded cuirasses stood rank and file in their mail shirts on the way to the inner gate as the two horses stood fully packed and ready. Well, almost fully packed. The seeing-off ceremony still had to happen with the giving of waybread and all farewells said. The Royals stood off to one side, Elrond, Celebrian and their sons to the other.

First came Elrond's thanks for getting Jesse out of that damn funk. Second came Elladan and Elrohirs' apology for their overzealousness in their duties to protect their King and his family, an apology that nevertheless sounded a bit forced. Thirdly came Celebrian with the lembas, which out of special consideration for the riders, the kitchen staff had been up baking all the night and unto past dawn (2). She presented two flat loaves wrapped with leaves from the trees on Mallorn Street to Mithrandir, and then four loaves to young Mr. Walsh. Nitz must have thought that maybe there had been a mix up and they were both to receive three, but he could have sworn that Celebrian _winked_ at him as she backed away.

The king came forward to say farewell and wish him a safe journey. It would take nights to get back to Finger Lakes country even at a full gallop, and who knew if those bruise-coloured bozos were still looking for him? For that reason was it decided to travel mostly by night, and to stay off the roads for the most part.His Lady (many higher ups still refused to acknowlede a human as their queen) said farewell as well, but added that anytime he wanted to come visiting, he could count of having a place with them to stay (Nitz privately wondered whether Jesse had anything to do with that, but brushed it of as simple hospitality). Jonah then came forward, shook his hand and said something to him in Sindarin that made the elves' eyes go wide, but they said nothing.

It was then Jesses' turn to say something. She stepped forward, and Nitz began getting conflicted again. Mostly it was an internal debate between the parts of his brain responsible for respectively love and self-preservation.

The first felt Devotion

The second was keen on living another day

The first felt Attraction

The second aargued on the point of 'Saving our neck'

The first one felt like it was Head over heels in love

The second wanted to be making sure that the head and those heels were still attached to the body

They decided to compromise and stick to the plan.

When Jesse spoke to him in formal tones reaching back beyond mans history, Nitz responded with a curt but affectionate farewell, a courtly bow and then proceeded to take her hand and diplomatically kissed the back of it. This didn't elicit much of a response from Elrond's sons, who obviously approved (or didn't strenuously disapprove) of the way he was doing things: gentlemanly and all that.

The next two words that came out of Jesses' mouth after Nitz raised his head, however, had more similarity to an exasperated groan.

"Screw it!"

With that, Jesse acted on the frustration of 7 months of waiting for the male to make the first move. She flung her arms about his neck, drew in close and kissed him with all the emotion she could muster. Nitz, at first surprised by this, acclimated quickly, even to the point of kissing Jesse back. Since it _was_ Jesse that instigated this public display of affection, Elrond's sons once again decided to spare Nitz any form of harm. When both young adults came up to breathe, Nitz was blushing violently.

"You could have just said 'shut up and kiss me' you know." Gasped Nitz.

"And rely on a cliché? That wouldn't have been very exciting." At this Nitz just looked more and more surprised, not to mention red in the face.

Elrohir whispered to his elder sibling, "Now I see why the prince referred to him as 'Brother'." Elladan nodded soberly, realizing that things _had _just gotten complicated.

**Meanwhile**… 

In a far off realm in "the utmost west", 13 of the Valar, the gods that watched over this world, were watching this scene being projected onto a crystal pane. Presently, 12 of them were just a little grouchy, although they were very happy to see the aforementioned scene happen.

If only they hadn't been wagering.

"WOO HOO! Everybody owes me money!" Shouted Namo the Doomsayer with glee. Having gotten his eyesight back shortly after being extinguished, he had been invited to Tanquentiel for a weeklong marathon of mortal watching to watch how the recovery went. They had even bet small trinkets of interest (3) on when the pair would finally, as a certain pair of disgraced Maiar would put it, "Lip wrestle". They (the Valar) of course would never word it so crudely, but found it appropriate for what Parker and Jessica had just done. It turned out that Namo had placed the winning time.

"Vaire, I know this is a good thing since it means his sight is returned, but could you please instruct your husband, my brother, on the subtleties of being a graceful winner and SHUT HIM UP?" Irmo winced under his brothers' gleeful boastings, and not just because he had lost several rolls of exquisite Indian embroidered silk in the wagering. It was a sound reminder NEVER to make a bet with the Doomsman of the Valar that you didn't expect to loose.

**Back in the Mortal World…**

As man and wizard rode out of the outer gate to the accompaniment of various horns, Nitz was still blushing from under the bill of his cap, which was now covered by the hood of his cloak. He'd never blushed so violently in his entire life (4) and it was beginning to dawn on Gandalf that the lad was supremely clueless on how to handle this new relationship. "You know, if you need any advice, I'm always available for consultation. And to answer your inevitable question about credentials, I've romantically advised… kings, nobles, thanes and mayoral candidates to name but a few."

"Okay…" Answered Nitz cautiously. "Maybe later"

"Eager to please. Eager to please." Said Gandalf in a tone that was… well, _eager_. Nitz knew the guy was wise, old and quite possibly not entirely of this world, but still…he was just plain _weird_ sometimes. It was almost like there was something h was concealing... but the question was _what_?

**2 days later, Ithaca, New York State**

Rocko was sitting stooped on the cement block in front of the front door of the Walsh house. There _was_ a door there now, he himself having helped replace it a little over a week ago. Every day since Nitz had phoned back, him (Rocko), Cal and Gimpy had waited here for him to come back. Although there were many things that the trio would rather be doing, involving alcohol (Rocko), hacking (Gimpy) and attending to his neglected High School Harem (Cal), Nitz was the central point that really held them together, and they felt they should welcome him back together.

The sound of horses snorting in the distance perked their ears, and those of hooves against asphalt hearkened them to turn their heads to the end of the street. The first figure to appear was an elderly man robed all in white riding a great red horse. Sure it clashed, but he entered the scene so seamlessly that it hardly seemed to matter. Next appeared Nitz, riding a bay. He was obviously trying to copy the old mans style, and wasn't quite succeeding. Still, it was better than if he had come racing in chaotically.

"And that, young Master Parker, is how to perform a graceful entrance. You're showing great talent for someone who only started riding two days ago. A few more lessons and people may start to think of you as not entirely human." Came the wizards voice as they came closer to the three. Nitz dismounted, slung the duffle bag down from behind the saddle… and was immediately accosted by the other three members of the Click.

The questions came fast and furious, never quite allowing Nitz to get a coherent answer in before the next question came. Finally Nitz just shouted the always-appropriate "SHUT UP!" to be able to get a little breathing room.

"To answer all your questions at once, I wasn't kidnapped. Jesse was having a medical emergency, and wanted me there. This gentleman…" Nitz pointed back toward the wizard "Informed me of her condition, I came and her condition improved drastically."

It was then that a wee bit of colour welling up in his cheeks betrayed a bit o' something else entirely. "And?" pressed Rocko, who could spot this kind of thing from a distance of several leagues.

"And… well, she kissed me. And I liked it!" This confession was met not with astonishment, nor much surprise, but in their stead with one third gleeful cheering, one third macho congratulation, and one last third of stunned silence.

"Hooray Nitz guy!" proclaimed Cal with glee.

"All right Nitz! I knew you weren't completely stupid!" said Rocko.

"If you're talking about my obsessing over Kimmy, I was possessed; with what, I don't know but I was." Nitz hoped like hell that had sounded witty.

Gimpy, on the other hand, was still in a mild state of shock at this declaration, but got over it eventually to deliver a short tirade. "Nitz! Don't you realize what you've done! Girls are the enemy, not to be dealt with at any cost!"

"Gimpy…" started Nitz, and then he spent a few seconds considering what to say next, finally coming up with something appropriately curt. "Shut up."

They began going towards the door, Rocko began saying "About Kimmy…"

"No, my friend." Replied Nitz, now sounding rather tired. "let's not talk about her. The only thing I want now is to sleep." He opened the door to meet his mother, who welcomed him home officially. I'll spare you the hysterics, but I'll tell you that he had a sore neck for roughly a fortnight afterwards. "Hey mom, I'll explain everything later, but allow me to introduce the guy who 'abducted' me: Mithrandir of the Istari." His mother looked over the shoulders of the young men

"Who?"

"The guy on the horse." Nitz gestured back towards the street.

"What horse?" Nitz and his fellows looked back, to find that the wizard and both horses were absolutely gone, the kind of gone that leaves no trace, no track, and no assurance that someone hasn't lost one or more of their marbles. Mrs. Walsh chose to ignore this

"Parker, you'll never guess whose here." She said, still a little excitable, leading her son into the house and down the hall toward the kitchen.

"Mom, I'm really tired and just want to…" Protested Nitz. But as they rounded the hallway door into the kitchen, Nitzs' voice was caught in his throat as he laid eyes on the absolutely _last _person, let alone female, he wanted to see.

"Oh Nitz!" Exclaimed Kimberly Burton as she sat up. Nitz was unsure what to do, but one idea, one base instinct was shoving its way forward from the reptilian part of his brain.

Kimmy equals fire, Kimmy equals demonic possession.

Fire equals dangerous, demonic anything equals dangerous.

Conclusion: Run.

Nitz back-pedalled down the hallway to the staircase with a certain amount of terrified determination and a defiantly high amount of speed. Just as he turned and began going full-bore up the stairs, Ms. Burtons voice rang out mournfully "Nitz, I'm sorry!"

This caused the rational part of the cerebral cortex to regain control so it could make sense of what had just been said. He stopped on the fourth stair up and leaned out over the railing to establish eye contact. "Sorry? Sorry about what?"

"About what happened at the party. I was so distraught over learning about Mark and Lance, then everybody started screaming… and then it was almost like something that wasn't a part of me took hold when… well." Her rambling trailed off at this point.

"Nothing happened." Nitz reassured her with a sigh "A friend of mine knocked us out before we did anything we'd regret. And about your being possessed… well, it was sort of a theme that night." Nitz said, but was thinking 'What the hell is going on?'

"Then I'm sorry about what happened between you and Jesse. She was so in love with you, and all this time I was distracting you, keeping you from her. That's the kind of thing a romantic can never live down." Kimmy had been seen like this before, but only when one of her grand implements for social and ethical betterment went belly up like a dead shrew.

Nitz was intrigued to find out that she was a romantic, but strangely, it didn't surprise him (5). "Don't worry, we patched things over pretty nicely, and I've seemed to have lost any interest in you whatsoever."

"Good. I was beginning to panic over it, especially after that stunt cost me my six hundred dollars I wagered." Said Kimmy, noticeably relieved.

"_What_ six hundred dollars?" Asked Nitz in a state of moderate to high confusion.

Having realized her slip of the tongue, Kimmy got nervous and backed towards the door in a slow motion replay of Nitz from about 3 minutes ago. "Nothing, nothing, just more babble from me, the campus caffeine-addict (6)." She reached the door, reached a hand behind her to find the knob, and then opened, bolted out of and closed the door behind her in one fluid movement. From the sound of it, she knocked Gimpy into the shrubs.

"She's a nice girl; slightly insane, but nice nonetheless." Commented Anne as her son headed up to his room. Upon arriving, he slipped of his cloak, hat, jacket and shoes and prepared to sleep off the rest of the afternoon. It was _then_, however, that he noticed Kimmy's picture, still sitting on his desk, mocking him for his four and a half years of stupidity. He picked it up, slid it out of the frame… and then noticed a lighter behind where the picture had been: most likely from Rocko after he explicitly told him… The thought remained unfinished a new one came up.

In some countries, they burn paper to herald in the New Year. Maybe it could apply here too.

An hour later, Nitz was snoring away. He had already received an E-mail message from Jesse asking if he had made it home all right, and he had replied in turn. The only thing that was out of place at all was the vaguely acrid smell of smoke hanging in the air. That was because, in a steel waist basket that had been pulled out of its corner, a scattering of ash and paper fragments lay long cooled.

One of the fragments was a partial image of what had been red hair.

* * *

1. Again, not to be confused with female dogs of good temper and family. 

2. And they were now mostly lounging in their east wing rooms rewarding themselves with a good book and a fifth of gin for their efforts.

3. They have no need for money, as we know it, but find things of interest (artefacts, artworks, etc.) as our distant ancestors did with rough gems and lumps of copper, gold and silver.

4. Unless you count that time when Nitzs' subconscious tried to fight back against the entity in his head, getting a severe beating in the process.

5. Well, it did, but not nearly as much as it should have, she being the high-powered feministic one-woman activist stereotype of legend and lore.

6. This didn't surprise Nitz at all.


	9. An Unexpected Visit

Morgoths Bane

Chapter the 9th

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing save for a meagre assortment of original characters and names to go with those unnamed. The plot is basically mine too: I've tried to keep most of my own plot for the first year behind the scenes and roughly fitting with canon, and tried to keep the rest roughly believable relative to what canon templates I use.

(Notice how I use the word "roughly" twice in the same disclaimer?)

And if the Protectors of the Plot Continuum™ come calling on their rounds, give them some fried eggs on toast, some bacon, some tea, and make sure it's ON THE HOUSE! You guys deserve it, for the help you gave me and for the work you do. And thank you for patronizing the Friendly Cur.

I put this chapter in so the elder Walsh's have the opportunity to meet their sons' romantic interest before the midden hits the windmill (or, to lisp an Igorism: "a thort thower of thit"). Jesse's hair will still be its natural colour, to make her appear somewhat more baseline, therefore more acceptable to a white bread American family. The thing about her looking somewhat Chinese… well, that won't be as big a problem as some would suspect.

* * *

**July 15th, Ithaca, New York, Walsh Residence**

Nitz was sitting on the living room sofa, watching television, with electric fans set around him going full blast. The air conditioner had blown something a week ago, and of all the times for the blasted thing to conk out on them, high summer was probably the worst. His mother was soaking her feet in a tub of ice water in the kitchen; his dad had gone to try to argue with the repair shop to hurry up, in full professor get-up no less, and his friends… his friends were staying as far away from this oven of brick and wood as humanly possible, especially Gimpy. He said he was having a few 'minor' problems with the motherboard on his hacking set-up, which probably meant it was crashing every ten minutes.

There was a knock on the door. Nitz considered this strange since people in the neighbourhood were making a concerted effort to avoid this particular house. He got up of the couch, grabbed an extra long housecoat (1) and was fastening the cord when he arrived in the entrance hall. "I'll get it!" he shouted, being considerate of his poor mother and her over-insulated feet. He opened it… and beheld his ladylove getting a blast of hot air straight in her face. "Ah… yeesh… Jesse… sorry about that, but the air conditioner's broke."

"I heard. The boys were very clear about that." Replied Jesse, who had a smile on her face despite looking like the victim of a rabid blow dryer.

Her hair (still its natural shade) was mussed and tussled, and a thin sheen of sweat formed upon her brow from the heat of the house. While very appealing, Nitz realized that if he kept staring, problems would almost certainly arise. He shook himself out of it and decided to call back to his mother "Mom! Its' Jesse!"

There was a sloshing sound from kitchen, followed by his mothers' reply of "Well, see her in Parker!" And show Jesse in he did, even giving her a clumsy bow. They proceeded into the kitchen where sat Mrs. Walsh in a particularly garish sundress with a dark towel covering the water in the tub. "So _you're_ Jesse. It's very nice to finally meet you."

"Likewise." Said Jesse as she began pulling a chair out for herself, but Nitz automatically cleared his throat, took the chair from Jesse and completed pulling it out. Jesse allowed this; even allowing herself to feel complimented, but decided she would have to talk some sense into him later.

It was that moment the front door opened, and a bedraggled man with a large nose, spectacles and threadbare moustache was heard to make his way down the hall, turned sharply into the kitchen, dropped his briefcase by the table, opened the freezer door and stuck his head into the icy recesses.

"Patrick?" Asked his wife.

"Yes Dear?" Came a muffled voice from the frozen depths.

"We have company."

Patrick jerked his head up, barely escaped hitting his head on the top lip of the freezer and swivelled his head toward his wife. "We do?" Anne nodded towards Jesse. Patrick followed her gaze to the new arrival and jerked into a sense of formality at seeing their guest. "Oh… we do!" He closed the freezer door and started towards them. "Sorry about that. When it heats up I tend to become a little… single minded."

"_I'll say._" Muttered his wife, but Patrick seemed not to notice it. "Patrick, this is Jessica. She's the girl that Parker's been telling us about." Patrick, finally caught up to current events in his own head, sat down and began listening intently. They explained about how they had met almost at the start of the year, their friendship and how he had been extremely oblivious to her liking him in favour of the resident ditz. Then came the explanation of _why _the strange man in white had dragged Parker away that May evening.

The explanation, as the younglings (mainly Jesse) told it, was that her father was a large shareholder in Eldemar Technologies, a moderately sized but very successful computer and electronics company. He also made large quarterly donations to the People for Interspecies Tolerance Organization (the first and formost Gargoyle rights advocate), and had earned himself more than a few enemies in the process, the Quarrymen chief among them. Their plans for intimidation had heavily featured Jesse.

Early in the year they had observed her growing interest in Parker, and had planted a mental suggestion in his head that Ms. Burton was the true bees knees. Though it was an annoyance, it wasn't quite enough to prove that they were serious.

The second step was a tailor-made, delayed action poison split into two halves. One half had been put into one of Jessica's' beverages and the other into one of Parkers, he having drank a considerably smaller dose. Brought together, this toxin would have been lethal inside a matter of minutes, but split into halves, while still toxic, produced a gradual wasting effect, and prompted the release of hormones shown to be involved in the emotions collectively labelled "despair". It was also a large release of these same hormones that activated the toxin, the first plot being factored into the second.

The Quarrymen had made threats that only they had the antidote, and if Gilbert didn't cancel his second quarter donation promptly, his daughter would be dead by the summer solstice.

(Let it be known that during this entire recounting no lies were actually told. This was all true… from a certain point of view. No one really knows WHY the young duo had been targeted save a select few and Gil Galad _did _make quarterly donations to the P.I.T.; This story was as close to the truth as could be told without freaking people out.)

It also became apparent that an antidote to both toxins could only be synthesized with samples of both. That was why Parker had been rather forcefully summoned to the estate. Blood samples had been taken and an antidote formulated, and during the recovery period quite a close connection was formed. That answered the question of when they had started dating quite nicely.

"And your last name _was_?" Asked Patrick, not sure if she had indeed answered it

"Kingson, Jessica Kingson." Replied the young woman.

"That doesn't sound very Chinese…" said Anne, but getting a look from her husband added "if you are Chinese that is, not to assume or anything."

"My mother is. My father was living in Manhattan when he met her on the roller boogie floor. They hit it off rather quickly as well. I hope this won't affect anything between us." Jesse became a bit nervous at the prospect.

"Of course not. Compared to some of the people in our family, you wouldn't even manage a blink. I was just saying to my wife the other day that her sisters…" This ramble was cut short by an elbow to the ribs. "Ouch-ka-bibble!"

"Well… thanks." This relieved Jesse greatly, but she started to wonder how strange her beau's family was compared to hers.

"No problem, but it would be better if my husband never maligned my sisters again, no matter now annoying and persistent they might be." Anne looked toward her husband, who only let forth a disappointed shrug.

Jesse happened to glance at her watch, caught the time, and became quite startled. "Oh, god, uh, sorry. I really have to go. I've already kept my ride waiting far too long."

Patrick stood up. "Goodbye then. And don't forget to visit again sometimes… why don't you come visiting over the winter break? The relatives will be coming over for Christmas, and they'll doubtless want to meet you." Anne at first just looked puzzled and somewhat shocked at her spouses' suggestion, but a look of supreme understanding and something approaching sneakiness slowly appeared.

"What a great idea! Maybe Gytha will stop sending those letters then." She looked meaningfully at her son, for a reason that was a mystery for both Jesse and the reader at the present time. It won't remain that way, but for now it will.

Parker and Jessica walked back to her transport, a shiny blue Prius that was obviously rented. Jesse decided that this was the time to talk about the undue show of politeness. "Nitz, you didn't have to pull that whole "gentlemanly" routine on me. I can do things on my own, not like some redheads I know of."

"Yeah… she's always been a bit of a strange one. And about the whole 'politeness thing'…" Nitz fidgeted a little at what he wanted to say.

"Yes?" Asked Jesse, her arms crossed and a finger tapping on the other elbow.

"Well… I wanted to make a good impression. It's just something you _do_ in front of my mothers family. You show manners and politeness to make it clear that the relationship is serious (2)." Nitz felt a little silly saying something like that, so deciding to add something, said "Sort of traditional."

"Perfectly understandable. Under the right circumstances, my family can get pretty…" Jesse seemed to smile in an almost foreboding way, more akin to the first ten minutes of a horror movie than a young romance "_traditional_ when the time is right."

"Well… good then." And then, just to show that he had shed some of his uptight shell, Nitz kissed Jesse on the spur of the moment. He pulled out of it, and waited for whatever reaction might come.

"You're learning." Commented Jesse as she climbed into the passenger seat of the car her brother was at the wheel of. "By the way, could you and the guys swing around and pick us up at the start of the year. Mom and Dad still haven't agreed on what they want in a car, and nothings going to be resolved until the New Year at this rate."

"Uh, sure. But wouldn't the guys be a little freaked out by your neighbours?"

"Tell them, but make it clear that they are to keep it to themselves. The last thing we need is a horde of fantasy nuts invading our town." Jesse seemed to be pretty strict on that condition, but Nitz could understand her concern.

"Okay, September 3rd then?"

"Deal" The car began pulling away. "Bye Nitz!"

"See you!" Nitz waved at the retreating shape of the car.

From the front door, Mr. And Mrs. Walsh appraised the situation: Their son and this girl were definitely dating… but would they ever get to "beyond dating"? That was what her sisters were trying to push her son into. And was this girl even ready for the shock?

"Why did you agree to have her come over this Christmas? I would have thought you would take it as a jab at your sisters." Asked Patrick to his wife. He was a little confused, but just because of the heat.

"Parker did a good job of showing he was serious, but now my sisters have to see, and Jessica has to see what she'll get if she enters this family. If she can handle it, she'll fit right in." Anne looked meaningfully at her husband.

"She should… I did." Said her husband in an agreeing tone.

* * *

Next time: Going to town, arriving on campus and a conspiracy unmasked! 

1. He was only wearing an undershirt and a pair of boxer shorts

2.And won't end up with heavily armed male relatives ringing the doorbell carrying a length of rope and a shovel


	10. Lifting of Veils

Morgoths Bane

Chapter 10: The Lifting of Veils

Disclaimer: I don't own anything save the odd original character and perhaps the plot. Actually, if you want to use this crossover idea, feel free as long as you contact me with the general idea and the assurance that it will be Mary-sue free, especially ones after Legolas: the poor guy's been through enough.

Summary: People only really believe things when they see them, and Rocko, Gimpy and Cal are in for a doozy! The veils separating the worlds are nudged open for a select few and Nitz and Jesse find that more than just their personal well being depended on their relationship… in too many ways to tell.

Star Wars EU spoilers ahead.

* * *

**September 3rd, 2001: A Road, Upper Western NY State.**

"Nitz, I think you've finally lost it on this one. Not that you haven't lost it before, but to lose it this much is a first for you." This was Rocko, who Nitz had just informed of their destination. I'll grant that what Parker had just said wasn't easily believable by anyone without an interest in classic fantasy literature, but, as the two peers sat in the back of the 1984 green Civic sedan, Nitz insisted it was true.

"I saw the place myself, and you guys saw how the guy and the horses disappeared back in May." He was getting a bit tired of having to constantly try to convince them, and the Force comparisons were running a bit long with Gimpy.

"Frankly Nitz, I'm not even sure _what _I saw. It's this turn, right Nitz?" Said Warsie asked. Gimpy had packed his stuff, ineffectual computer and all, despite the worries about strain on the tires.

"Yeah." Nitz just leaned back in the seat and hoped his friends wouldn't react too wildly when they arrived. Then he closed his eyes…

…And awoke to the sound of Rocko cursing profusely. They were idling in front of the great doors of the Willow Boulevard gate, the boys outside staring up at its height of 24 feet. He got out of the car and walked over to where his friends were standing. "Well Nitz, I gotta say... maybe you haven't lost it after all." Said Rocko, still looking up at the gate.

"I told you, didn't I?" He too looked up at the parapets, and then whistled loudly. Two heads looked over the edge in answer to the signal.

"Who go'eth there?" Called one of them in an overly poetic tone, probably to mask his strong Quenya accent. His companion looked at him strangely.

"Go'eth?" queried the second figure, before whacking the first in the head and letting forth a sting of Quenya that made Nitz blush despite himself. "Who are you and what do you want?" called the second while the first was still rubbing his head.

"Parker Walsh and friends! We're here to pick up Jesse and Jonah!" Nitz called up, to which the pair of heads receded, probably to confirm with their superiors.

After two minutes, the gate began rumbling open to reveal the street beyond. The heads returned, saying they could proceed. The young men got back into the car, Rocko and Gimpy looking abashed. They drove through the gate towards the inner wall, where the guys would see even more.

**Inside Lindon Manner**

"I still don't see why you had to dye your hair again. I _thought_ I heard you say that you thought that Parker liked your natural shade." Asked Ereinion Gil Galad to his daughter as they walked toward the front door. He had been surprised last year at her decision to dye her hair purple, but saw it simply as a way for her to carve out her own identity… or possibly to disappear into the college crowd.

"I have to keep up my image. People expect me to be kind of the same as last year." To this her father stated that her brother had done fine without any sort of image at all.

"This may surprise you father, but I couldn't _afford _to have an image in college. I was in a virtual state of hiding since October. Didn't you wonder why I asked for that legal advise over Batavia way?" Answered Jonah as he pulled up alongside. Their father had to concede that he had lost the discussion as they emerged onto what was charmingly referred to as "the porch".

**The Yard**

The boxes were piled just beside the door, which opened to reveal a motor vehicle being exited by a number of human males, only two being at all comfortable in this situation. The first of these was obviously Nitz, sitting on the trunk. He waved at Jesse, although he came off as much less confident than he desired to be. Its one thing to rehearse all the confidant romantic gestures you desire to make in the privacy of ones home, but in public it's a little more difficult.

Rocko was amazed and quite literally too stunned to speak or even to swat at the mosquitoes buzzing about him, which was unusual in that he often had a boorish comment to throw out in an awkward space. He was currently examining the ears on a line of guards. They were doing the old "Buckingham" routine, standing perfectly still and impassive despite the slightly lessened skeeter barrage, but giving off the feeling that the 'annoying tourists' were one indiscretion away from having every bone in their body broken (1).

Gimpy was sitting in the Civics' driver's seat, clutching at the wheel with an expression of pure shock, his natural hate of all things Star Trek having instituted a shutdown after having just seen more pointy ears than at the average Pon Farr singles-only mixer. The lads knew he was all right because his eyes were still twitching. And Cal… was Cal: annoying, inexplicably attractive to females and having roughly the I.Q. of a RITZ cracker (2). "Hey, Guys! It's Jesse Lady Friend Guy!" He waved, leaning out the passenger side window. He was the second one comfortable here, mostly out of sheer air-headedness.

"Hey guys… sorry about all the extra muscle. People are still a little jittery around these parts from that May episode. I hope it doesn't make you guys nervous." This was probably the most apologetic Jesse had ever been in front of what she thought of as "the guys" (3), not least because they were seeing her in her natural habitat.

"What? Uh… not really, no." replied Rocko, just coming out of his daze. Jesse then hefted a box into the arms and preceded down the stairs, followed by her brother carrying his two crates, their father with another two, and finally Elladan and Elrohir lugging an unusually long case between them. When Jesse reached Nitz, he took her crate for to hoist up onto the car roof. She, however, chose to distract the lad from his manual labours by planting a kiss of affection upon his startled lips, for which he blushed while trying to keep the box steady.

"What's Gimpy doing here? I thought he would be out on his oil rig by now." Asked Jesse when their lips detached.

"It got bought out. Someone with more money than God paid its former owners 300 mil when they were going to give it away for a song." Nitz smiled humorously. "If I didn't know better, you'd think someone was coordinating this."

Rocko saw this scene, and was about to put the question to Jonah, but the brother stopped him short with a hand signal and a sage nod. Mr. Gambiani too nodded in response, although his face possessed quite a lewd grin to it. The faces of the twins, however, as they met the eye of Mr. Walsh were steady and quite bereft of smiles, theirs being the grim faces of those promising dismemberment to one that would besmirch their charges honour. Gimpy, just coming around, was getting nervous at all the attention. Cal was… not to call him an idiot, but sometimes the truth hurts.

Eventually, the roof of what the author likes to term Click-mobile had obtained the general feel of the Bodine truck (i.e. rickety and held together with rope) and the enlarged ensemble were off, through the town and back out the far east gate. As they headed out across the converted marshland, the guards on the walls stopped watching them, getting back to games of chance or chess, until only one set of eyes observed them. The white raven known as Chalk perched on the outer cornices, staring east without heeding the sun.

Something strange about that bird, I tell you.

* * *

**Student Union, State U campus, Sept. 3rd, Lunchtime**

Lunchtime on the campus of the State University of New York was a busy, noisy affair, which could really be said about campus cafeterias the world over. Gimpy had been dropped off first with is computer, his driving replaced by that of a lackey. Then Rocko had been deposited in front of the Alpha Alpha fraternity house in a rather abrupt fashion: dumped on his arse on the sidewalk with his boxes beside him. Then, arriving at State U, they (meaning Nitz, Cal and our resident pseudo-Numenorians) felt the need to sup before moving their boxes up to their new dorms. The lackey presumably parked the car safely.

This is the point when things began getting a bit strange.

First of all, the life form known only as Charity did a sudden rush for Jonah while he was in line to get some Cantonese stir-fry for Jesse to heap on her waffles. The two things that stopped him from becoming a smear on the linoleum were his quick reflexes on his arm and her wearing a good set of track shoes. He held out a very legal looking document.

"What is this?" asked Charity, slightly confused.

"A restraining order. By the authority of the State of New York, _you_ have to stay at least 50 feet away from _me_ at all times…" He read some of the finer print. "Except when in a separate room, story of a building or otherwise physically obstructed." He had to be firm with this girl, that no _meant no_!

"But… I was going to come with you to your castle in the sky, and we were going to live happily ever after with the fairies and the clouds and the…" These were clearly the ramblings of a crazy person, so Jonah decided to intercede and sooth her nerves.

"Look. Charity, I'm not sure where you got this "castle in the sky" nonsense from, but I live less than 10 miles from here, firmly on the ground. Its nothing but farmland carved out of marsh for miles around. The mosquitoes are so thick in the summer that we have to raise wasps, spiders and dragonflies just to keep their numbers down, and the wind so harsh in winter that the icicles form sideways. And I'm not that great of a catch either… I'm a complete coward most of the time. Most of last year I was running and hiding!" He failed to mention that she was the reason for this, and that his shattered nerves had healed over, but a little white lie wouldn't do any harm if it got her off his back and back on the path to something approaching sanity… or a mental hospital.

Seeing her disappointment at his rebuff, he decided that trying to cheer her up wouldn't do any harm. "Hey, it's not the end of the world. There's a whole ocean of other fish out there, all of them ripe for the catching. Any one of them could be your future vict… I mean, boyfriend. I say: go at it, and _make that one YOURS_!" It worked: Charity walked off, head held high, and Jonah wondered how his mother would react if she had seen that. 'Probably berate me for going into the motivational speaking racket.'

He eventually got the stir-fry, and took it back to his sister, who indeed put it on her waffles. "Well, you're finally out of dodge bro. What do you intend on doing now?" Asked Jesse as she began eating.

"Some of this, some of that: I was thinking of raising catfish in the south drainage ponds and taking up fencing. Nothing big." Replied her brother in the manner of a young, wannabe aristocrat. He began raising his BLT on toast to his mouth, but then he saw another girl approaching. "And who is this bonnie lass with the flaming hair then?" He asked in his best faux-Irish brouge.

The girl was Kimmy Burton, coming to the table with her own tray. "Hey Nitz, Jesse, Cal… I don't think I know you."

"Jonah Kingson, Jesse's brother. I was in hiding most of last year from the Blonde Tornado." Jonah cocked his thumb back towards Charity. "And you must be the 'Crimson Distraction' my sister was always ranting about."

"Well, yes." Said Kimmy, her eyes slightly avoiding Jesse. "But, on the other hand, it's nice that you two found each other."

"Yeah." Nitz decided it was time to get to the bottom of something that had been bugging him for months. "Listen, Kimmy. Remember when you said that you lost six hundred bucks over that screw-week fiasco? What exactly did you mean by that?"

Kimmy looked furtively from side to side, and then leaned in conspiratorially. "Are you sure that you two are together, like, for real?"

"_YES_! We've met each other's parents, we've been through a bit of a crisis together…" Just for a bit of fun, Jesse wiped her mouth with a napkin and suddenly kissed her beau on the cheek. "As well as that."

"Okay then… have any of you ever been involved in a betting pool?" After giving their respective answers (4) she proceeded to tell them a tale of intrigue and medium height adventure.

The tale started almost a year ago, when some enterprising soul, whose name is lost to the mists of time, had noticed the unusual predicament between Kimmy, Jesse and Nitz, and, in secret, had created a betting pool with 3 simple conditions:

1. Which female would Mr. Walsh hook up with?

2. When would they hook up?

3. How far would they have gone within the first three days of their relationship?

The majority of the bets had relied on the unnatural drive For Kimmy Burton that Nitz had appeared to possess. A few, however, saw that Jesse desired Parker almost as fiercely and much more truly (5) than Parker desired the redhead, and bet some money on that off chance. As the months rolled by and the romantic pendulum went nowhere, people began dropping out in large numbers, even more so when Kimmy herself found out about this pool, and declared that she thought Nitz was a good friend but not much else.

She was running the thing by the winter term.

Things went on, with Kimmy screwing up her bet all by herself. It seemed that the bookies were getting impatient. Not a lot of betters were left in the pool, and the pot was getting huge.

"So, let me get this straight…" Jesse was… angry, shocked and scandalized, and yet the edge to her voice indicated that her raw rage was more than the sum of its parts. "My and Nitzs' personal lives have basically been one giant _peepshow_ for a couple of cowardly voyeurs and would-be high-rollers. And the only reason you were spared this was because you took over this _racket_ and got out Scot-free. How many people were in on this thing?" Jesse pointed her fork gangster-style at Kimmy; and Nitz was half ready to believe that she was about to make Kimmy an offer she literally could not refuse.

"Well, about twenty five or thirty…" Kimmy began, and Nitz breathed a sigh of relative relief. That relief, however, was extremely short lived as Kimmy added the crucial modifier. "…Thousand people, which, assuming an average wager of about 100 dollars per person comes to a cool two or three mil in the pot."

Her audience was, to put it bluntly, shell-shocked, and gaped open mouthed at the speaker. Eventually, Jonah managed to squeak something out. "Two… or three… _million_ dollars?" What he was thinking was that this wasn't just a bunch of bored and vicarious college kids betting for something to do… well, it was, but it had reached the scale of organized near-crime; a gambling venture of Mafioso proportions.

And this cheerful little carrot-top was the Don and didn't even realize it.

Nitz, coming to and wanting some way to vent his emotions, suddenly climbed up on an empty portion of the tabletop. "OKAY YOU GUYS! I KNOW YOU'VE BEEN BETTING ON THE OUTCOME OF MY PERSONAL LIFE, SO THOSE WHO DID CAN JUST STOP HERE AND ADMIT IT!" The crowd, inexplicably, went silent… a thoughtful, guilty silence in fact.

"It's no use, Nitz," said Kimmy, standing up. "They'll only fess up when I give the closing signal." It was _then _that Kimmy let loose a loud yodel composed of seeming random syllables that dazzled in its sheer bizarreness (6).

Nine hundred and fifty heads snapped in their direction.

So Nitz asked again, much more politely this time. The vast majority of these raised their hands, some sheepishly and some proudly. And then, seemingly in the background, a voice shouted out "Well, _when did_ you guys hook up?" The thing was, though, that it didn't seem to come from one particular person

This time Jesse took up the call. "It was May 17th … we just hung out, we talked, and… okay we flirted like a couple of dumb teenagers a few times. Nothing more, nothing less." Why she was saying this escaped her, it felt that things had to happen to move happenings along… plus, it was really the only way to get them of their backs.

Somewhere at the far end of the Union, a young woman with frizzy black hair developed a slightly mad smile, froze, and fell sideways in her seat.

**Somewhat Earlier…**

Tekerson Technical Institute, a grey building of cinder block and plaster, was abuzz with activity.

G-Prime was back.

Klaxons sounded, the sounds of feet rushing filled the corridors as people hurried to the loading docks. Rows of nerds and computer geeks were lined on either side of one of the doors and, although missing the armour and uniforms of the Imperial navy, appeared very similar to the Vader arrival scene in Return of the Jedi. Downcast were their eyes, not out of any sort of shame, but out of grief.

Chewbacca… was _dead_. Killed in the _New Jedi Order_ books by having a celestial body come down on top of him during the Vong conflict. This had been taken in these halls as a sign that the EU was treading atmosphere like a crippled star cruiser.

And two years on, the hert hadn't faded. And then came the rumours of another upcoming death.

The corrugated steel door finally began ascending, causing the nerds to stand to attention. Mump, Gimpy's squat, red haired lieutenant, approached the rising, rumbling entry point. To describe the situation as nervous would be an understatement of criminal measure: Gimpy was still aggravated about losing access to his hardware. It'd never worked right since that cowardly female launched her attack, and his new treachery had frayed nerves even more.

As G-Prime marched down the avenue created by his minions, Mump trailed alongside. "The men are ready to launch the attack as soon as you're ready sir. You just say the word, and Del Rey's mainframe will be…"

Gimpy whirled on his second-in-command, releasing pent-up frustration. "You know that my set-up is _this_ close to being junked. Without it, even _with_ my skills, our impact would be minimal." Gimpy looked over to where his possessions were being wheeled in. He turned back to Mump. "If this treachery is to be avenged, my hardware needs to be in top working order. Alert the engineers… we're going in!" As Gimpy and Mump marched into the halls, they passed a young, blue haired woman obscured by the ranks.

She smiled.

**Back at State U, after lunch**

Dunmore Hall was quite a respectable domicile… in that it was in better shape than Chilton Hall was even before that incident in May in which 20 students had been killed and another 40 sent to hospital. No graffiti on the hallway walls coupled with the fact that the plaster on said walls was in very good shape, a full kitchenette was positioned on each floor and there being a superior plumbing system in place made this building a very popular living space for those sophomores who got signed early enough. The one drawback was an aging furnace that failed for days at a time once every year or so.

Security was still wary of all comings and goings, so it took a little bit to actually get into the dorm. Once in, Jonah, Jesse and Nitz proceeded to the fourth floor, where their rooms were located. The two men folk would be roommates, apparently for reasons of familiarity and convenience, but Jonah had also promised Elrond's sons that he would keep tabs on his sister's relationship to make sure things remained 'proper'. Carrying their boxes in or under their arms or on a hand truck, they first approached the men's dorm.

"Well, here we are Nitz. It would be best if we got settled as soon as possible." Jonah said as he wiggled a hand free from carrying to turn the doorknob. Opening the door, he found a room nicer than Nitzs' old room in Chilton, but still very utilitarian: A desk, two beds, some drawers and a corner closet. Overall, it was nice. He just hoped that Nitz locked the door regularly… unlike his old roommate.

"Okay… yeah." Replied Nitz, who was carrying his boxes under his arms. He turned to Jesse. "So… I'll see you later then. I hope you have a better roommate this year."

"You too." She had spied Jonah testing the desk for dust. " This time tomorrow?" That would be the scheduled time for a big announcement in the auditorium by the University President, although she made it sound like a date request… but whatever.

"Sure." Nitz tried to kiss his lady-friend on the cheek, but at that moment, Jonah grabbed him by the back of the shirt and pulled him into their room. Jesse chuckled at this, and then proceeded looking for _her _room.

She found Room 859 a little way down and across the hall. Leaning the hand truck against the wall, she knocked on the door. A young woman with frizzy black hair and fair skin answered it. This was Louise Birch: life long resident of Staten Island, part-time anti-horse slaughter activist and student of the Faculties of Sciences and Literature.

She was also a very new millionaire.

"So, you're my new roommate…Kingson is it?" Asked Louise as Jesse wheeled through the door.

"Yeah, I am. And the name's Jesse." She held out her hand in friendship.

Louise took it. "Louise Birch, Louise will do, but frankly, never call me 'Lou' under any circumstances. I work weekends, so if you want to play any loud music, invite your guy over or trash your side of the room… try to do it then." Louise thought that laying some ground rules early on would save a lot of trouble later.

"So… you know about me and Nitz?" Asked Jesse tentatively. But why wouldn't she? It was a very good chance that she had bet more than ten dollars on the circumstance.

"Well, it is practically old news that you were the only one pursuing him during his 'stupid period'. And the finally tally was _very surprising_." Well, for her at least, and profitable too.

"Hey, he may have been dense as a rock, but he was by no means stupid." Jesse rebutted, adding to herself that social clumsiness had been a worthy substitute.

"Well, sorry then. By the way, do you need help unpacking?" asked Louise.

Jesse agreed, and so they began putting things in order. One thing never displaced was a betting slip under Louise's mattress claiming the winning wager.

No one ever quite remembered who started the bet in the first place.

* * *

1. Twice or thrice for the particularly long ones 

2. Unsalted

3. Not counting her own group, which began as an attempt to develop a collage personality before blooming into true camaraderie and friendship

4. Jesse had once bet on a hockey game on TV, while Cal had wagered on… something of a far more private nature

5. Kimmy was far too flowery for her own good

6. If any Canadian readers are old enough to remember the YTV special "The Grogs First Santa Claus Parade", you'll know what I mean


	11. Gifts and Reconciliation

Morgoths Bane

Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I do not own anything in regards to any franchise, especially any of Tolkiens or Spielberg's stuff. That should be clear enough by now.

Authors note: If anyone can recommend what would give this story more depth, please inform me: I'm already planning Ainur conspiracies, Halloween parties and gags galore.

But not all will be dancing, laughs and misty veils: dark forces are at work in the world and they are frightened by something. To take this fear, however, and construe it as a sign of weakness would be a terrible mistake. For to eliminate the source of this fear, this enemy is not above inflicting things far more horrible than mere death upon any who may get in their way.

But friends and allies can be found in the strangest of places, like bars or the History Department… or even in a friend's computer.

I plan on writing a few more light chapters before everything goes to hell.

Summary: Announcements and revelations and reconciliation… and one more player steps onto the field.

Special Guest appearance: Richard Attenborough as the State University President.

* * *

**Sept. 4th, State U Auditorium, Noon.**

The great auditorium of State U was awash with activity. This was usually the annual orientation for new freshmen students, but this year all levels of study were allowed to join. The official seating capacity of the Albert Jenson Fredrickson Memorial Auditorium (Est. 1859) was just over 8000 (1), so besides the throngs of people in the seats themselves, hundreds of curious spectators were squeezing to fit into the high galleries and among the press and orchestral pits below the stage. Some of the most daring and dexterous were watching from the modern lighting gantries or peering from the (officially closed off) chandelier access corridors above the ceiling.

As to the reasons _why _so many students were attending (and watching from the remote screens set up at the Union and across campus) were actually quite interesting. The first was that a good deal of the student population was completely freaked out by that incident back in May. Eight giant black flying…_things_ had descended upon the campus in general and Chilton Hall in particular. Twenty people had been killed and another 40 had been sent to area hospitals with varying degrees of lacerations, contusions, puncture wounds and blood poisoning. Also, the University President had personally promised that anyone _not _watching his address would receive an automatic 20 percent reduction in their year end grade and/or their gross pay.

Nitz, Jesse and Jonah were navigating the access walkways between the rows, trying to find a couple of free seats. "Hey, over here!" A female voice called. Turning to look, Nitz saw that it was Kimmy waving at them, and around her were familiar faces. Reaching her, they saw three empty seats between them and her party.

"Hey Nitz guy! Hi Jesse lady friend guy! Hey Jonah brother friend guy! We saved you seats, and chips!" Cal, sitting in the row above Kimmy, waved the bag of Lays Ketchup chips enticingly at the newcomers. Jonah snagged it promptly.

"Hey Jesse, how much was I off by?" Came a voice from below them. It was Brody, sitting with Kruger on one side and Dan on the other.

"#&$ off Brody! Everybody knows they didn't do #&$ all except some teenager #&$, so quiet down so we can hear the old #&$er." Kruger pointed down towards the stage. Dan laughed. Jonah, having downed the chips, deftly stuffed the empty bag into Dan's open mouth.

In fact, an old man… who aside from the grey suit-jacket looked a lot like John Hammond from the first Jurassic Park Movie… was approaching the podium on the grand stage. This was Andrew McLeod: born in the village of Wyvern on the rocky west coast of Scotland, educated in the larger town of Oban to the north and graduate and former Dean of Biological Sciences at the University of Glasgow. He had only held the post of President for two years, and was doing an adequate job by any measure. This new trouble, however, was unlike anything encountered before.

"Students, staff and all assembled, my first wish is to give the traditional welcome to the freshmen class. This being that I both imbue in you the hope that you bring pride to the University… and also the hope that the chemistry building will keep its roof this year." Those members of the staff that were survivors of the Blast of '65 laughed mirthlessly at this.

Mr. McLeod sighed. "My second wish is that that was all I had to say, but unfortunately it is not. Many of you are well aware of the tragedy of this last May, when… things indescribable attacked this campus, more specifically the Chilton Hall dormitory. Twenty Students and Staff were killed, some at the start of what could have been full and promising lives. As administrative head of this university, it is my sad duty to lead the 60 seconds of silence for those killed and injured." His sorrowful tone turned slightly hard. "And if anything other than an honest cough, sneeze or hiccup happens in that minute, the offender will be on Stacks duty until Christmas."

This 'warning' was apparently successful in cowing any potential pranksters or wisenheimers. Nothing interrupted the minute of silence. During this time, Nitz silently reacted to this news. 'They were willing to inflict so much… pain… death… to get at _us_?' Needless to say, he was getting plenty nervous about his second year at this place.

When that minute ended, McLeod said that to improve the overall security of the campus, security at the perimeter was not only being upped, but also that a self-proclaimed expert on this phenomena had been accepted for an opening in the teaching roster of the Department of History. "Without any more ado, I give you Professor Oliver White, late of Oxford, with PhDs in History, Psychology and" he looked at his notes. "_Demonology_?"

With that, he surrendered the podium to another old man. He had longish white hair that was tied at the back, a trimmed beard and was wearing a sports coat/slacks combination in a pale cream colour. The rest of those assembled didn't seem to react too much to his appearance (more were commenting on his practicing fields), but three words were already being strung together in Nitzs' head as he recognized the figure.

_What…the…hell?_

"I must say that I am delighted to be here." The Not-so-Man began "This place may not be as prestigious as Cambridge or my Alma Mater, or even of your schools of Harvard and Yale, but I do not doubt that there is no shortage of brilliant minds ready to tackle the problems rife in the world today."

His face became serious. "There _are_ problems, you see. Not just things like religious nutters trying to blow up the world to get in good standing with the gods or the Earth turning into a giant version of the Mississippi swamp on account of global warming. The things I'm referring to are all that and _worse_: xenocidal lunatics hunting sentient beings down like animals, gods who went insane _eons_ ago coming back for one last shot at Apocalypse. Even the celestial bean counters are ticked at us for making the filing untidy."

He pressed a button on the podium, activating a projector. An image of a blonde man delivering what appeared to be an insane tirade appeared on the back wall. "_This_ is Jon Canmore. For four years he lived under the assumed name of Jon Castaway in order to avoid prosecution for the bombing of a Manhattan precinct house."

Mr. White gestured toward the image. "In that time he began rallying followers, frightened by the sudden appearance of Gargoyle-kind onto the world stage, to the Quarrymen: the selfsame xenocidal lunatics I told you of. As Gargoyles became more and more accepted and mass resignations among the lower-middle class cut into the organizations numbers, his tactics became more and more _ruthless_. As of 1998, anyone who didn't aid them was considered an active enemy."

He began listing off instances. "Pro-Gargoyle meetings were bombed, people were summarily execuated by being shot in the head, many more were violently assaulted; even President Clinton had an attempt made on his life during a visit with a gargoyle Methodist preacher in northern Virginia. Torture and fear became a way of life inside an organization composed mostly of hardened criminals, die-hard xenophobes and the criminally insane. Even the organized crime families feared them; the more religious among them even started calling Canmore "The Devils Glove" (2). The last I heard, The P.I.T. was halfway through their fundraiser to erect a memorial to the fallen."

Professor White continued. "And _this_," he pressed another button, loading another picture into the projector, of a dark, winged shape. "Is where that name of his originated." He turned back to the assembled. "When the established Crime families began rejecting him out of a complete lack of any sense of tactics or any potential gain for themselves, Canmore began meeting with newer immigrant gangs coming in from Russia or rural Sicily, hoping that he could impress them with the promise of power from his backers."

Here he referred to his notes. "One such minor boss, a petty murderer and thug from the Sicilian countryside, apparently panicked after meeting with Castaway. He was reported as going into a Manhattan cathedral in some distress. Two leeks later, he was found _dead_ in his apartment, his skull _crushed like an egg_. Two weeks after that, on February 5th, 2000, the Catholic Archdiocese of New York publicly announced that it would both attend and recognize the marriage of Detective (2nd Class) Elisa Maza of the NYPD to the gargoyle Goliath, leader of the clan formerly of Wyvern, Scotland. Papal approval was unexpectedly both swift and vocal."

"Now," He queried aloud, having hooked his audience with a good spooky story. "You may wonder how a bunch of brutalizing lunatics, so violent that even the Mob would have no go with them, are connected with those winged monstrosities. Well, _you_ may not believe it, but it is a belief held by some that Canmore had meddled in dark magic or used his victims as fell sacrifices to some dark god or demon. Some even say…" He leaned in close to maximize the effect of a whisper into the microphone. "_That he sold his soul!_"

He rose again and straightened his tie. "Of course, I don't _believe_ this, but it _is _the impression that he had made on a lot of people." His voice once more became that of a professional orator. "All I'm saying is: Be careful. And be surprised by nothing. I wish you all a good year… or at least one without too many big green things with teeth. Good Day."

With that, he abandoned the podium and took leave of the stage altogether. Mr. McLeod hurried to the podium, and said with the desperate tone of someone trying to keep control of a situation, "He has _very good_ references." He said before following the professor.

Up in the seats, Nitz, Jesse and Jonah looked to each other in disbelief. Finally Nitz spoke in a deadpan tone that expressed the sheer weirdness he was feeling.

"This is going to be a _long_ three years."

* * *

In the halls behind the seats, the throngs of people were nearly impassable. The Gang had split up, intent on going about their own things. Nitz was currently trying to catch up with a certain new professor. 

"Professor White! Professor!" Shouted the young man as he darted between the figures in the crowd, one hand holding on to his trademark cap to avoid losing it.

The Not-so-man halted and turned in comprehension, and smiled at the Undergraduate rushing toward him. "Ah, Parker, it's so nice to see you again. How are things?"

"Fine, but what was all that talk about… well, _things_? All that creepy foreboding stuff!"

Parker was confused, frightened and just a little curious. In short, he was _freaked_.

"I just wanted to tell them not to take any facet of _normal_ for granted. That, and maybe preparing their collective subconscious for a few more shocks in a roundabout sort of way." Said the newly appointed professor light-heartedly, the heavy tone he had used so recently gone form his demeanour.

"But you said that you didn't even believe in what you were saying!" Exclaimed Nitz, flustered at this… thing taking the situation so lightly.

"I think, young sir, that you are missing the point. Belief, as a blanket term, is horribly subjective: Canmore still _believes _that all gargoyles and their supporters must be killed, not because of any facts or reason, but because he is, in _fact_, a flaming nutter. I don't _believe_ that these things are true: I _know _them to be true." A trace of an ancient weariness began to show through the smile, but almost instantly it was gone.

"Whatever." Said Nitz, going into mental overload. "Did you really go to Oxford, though?"

"Of course. It's a very lovely place." 'Yes,' thought Gandalf as Nitz walked away 'And I should know: I taught there before the First World War.' With that, the newly minted Professor White strolled off into his new job.

Meanwhile… 

Jesse had also seen fit to follow something. In this case, though, it was what was referred to as 'the call of nature'. This had spurred her to make use of the female lavatories. One other female was also using this washroom, however.

And she wasn't even using a stall.

"Yes mom, you heard me correctly: Two Million, Six Hundred and Thirty Five Thousand, Four Hundred and Seventy Five Dollars." There was some indistinct mumbling. "And Forty Seven cents."

This was Louise Birch, who had retreated to this washroom to conduct a private conversation with her parents over her cellular telephone as to the fate of her recent windfall and was currently preoccupied. "Mom? Oh, Hey Dad." There was a pause. "No, I _won't_ spend it all in one place, and _yes_, I'll use it for my education, and put the rest in a savings account…"

She nodded her general consent to the world at large. "Dad? Oh, Mom wants to talk again?" Another lengthy pause occurred. "And yes, _yes_, I'll keep quiet about it… Well, okay, bye then." She shut off her phone, turned around… and jumped nearly a foot off the ground when she found Jesse behind her: she'd been listening the entire time.

"So..." Began Jesse, her arms crossed and her face impassive "_you_ are the winner in this whole 'campus-wide betting-on-love-lives' thing. Who would have thought that it would be my own roommate that would collect such a windfall? Hmm?" It was the general feel that _someone _should be embarrassed.

"Look, I betted a few dollars on a lark; I thought it was a _joke_ at first." Silence. "Okay, I'm _sorry_, if that's what you want me to say. I meant no disrespect… and, overall, I'm happy for you guys." Louise held out a tentative hand in friendship and Jesse, faced with the prospect of her anger vetoing a vote of confidence in her and Nitz, sighed and accepted it.

"Well… thanks. I'm just upset at this whole betting thing. Reeks of conspiracies and nerds. Any idea who it was that originally started it?" She really wanted to know: blind rage can only get a person so far, after all.

"None. But it would really help me out if you wouldn't tell anyone. Please?" This was a pleading, sincere request, so it too was accepted.

"Not a word, I swear. But you should be pretty quiet about it as well. And don't throw too much of it around." As repetitious as this sounded, it was still good advice. They left the lavatory and departed to pursue their own activities, having gained a heightened opinion of each other (3).

* * *

**September 9th, Tekerson Technical Institute,Western New York State.**

Justin Taylor, alias Gimpy, alias G-Prime, was hunched over his keyboard, his eyes glued to the monitor and his fingers blurring in effort. Every inch of hardware and every line of code had been examined, yet the thing still wasn't working properly. If he knew who or where that… _witch_ She-Prime was, he'd go there and formally challenge her to a DOOM match… both because it wasn't _fitting_ to engage a female in brute combat, but also that he was fairly certain that he still got a sweat when he thought of her voice, high though it was.

Finally, though, a hopeful _beep_ emanated, and the screen went the dark green of a code-field. What appeared on this screen however, wasn't binary, but words.

_Luminous beings are we…_

_Not this crude matter_.

Gimpy stared, dumbfounded. "What the hell?"

Suddenly, the screen filled with code, replicating in ever-greater amounts. Windows and files opened and shut at phenomenal speed; doing things even the most skilled programmer/hacker would have failed to do without permanent injury and drug ingestion. Eventually it stopped; the screen going a blinding white.

"Hello, G-Prime." Said a deep, male, skilful sounding voice.

Gimpy, his eyes squinted because of the brightness of the screen, looked around. "Who is that? Where are you?"

"Directly in front of you… I'll probably help if I turn the brightness down." Indeed, the brightness on the screed did diminish, until the desktop was visible. There _was_ an addition, however. It was an oscilliscope inside a brass edged window that was superimposed on one corner of the desktop.

"Okay… but _what_ are you? How did you get this address?" Gimpy, in a fashion similar to Nitz, was getting freaked fast.

"I believe that that is a question better suited for the one who sent me." Answered the voice, now identified as coming through his headphones

Meanwhile, in the Next Room… 

Tabitha leaned back in her chair, headset ready and mouse cursor over the _connect _icon.

The Window appeared on her monitor. "Explanation time." It stated. She clicked the link and began talking.

"Hello, G-Prime. I assume that you know who this is." The response to his question was… let it just be said that I can't write it (it was both obscene and in Huttese). "I've missed you too." Her response was one of the classics of comedy, being calm and cheerful after being exposed to that kind of abusive language. "I also assume that you remember that virus I dumped into your hard drive this spring."

"_OF COURSE I REMEMBER! YOU ANY OUR DEVIOUS WAYS ARE THE REASON MY HARDWARE'S BEEN CRASHING!_" This was so sudden and loud that Tabitha was forced to force her headset off.

"Well, try it now!" She exclaimed through her microphone.

After a few minutes he commented "Odd, it's working fine now."

"Only fine?" Tabitha queried.

A few more minutes passed, the faint sound of clicking keys coming through her headphones. "Actually… it's working great! Better than great! The speed… it's… it's…"

"Incredible?" Offered Tabitha, obviously proud as she repositioned her headset.

"Well… yes. But how and… _why_; I remember what happened back in April." He was confused, as well he should be.

"Well… maybe I was over reacting a bit. You are a brilliant hacker: not quite up to _me_ but brilliant all the same." Before he could get angry again and retort, she continued. "And that is part of why I sent you our friend here. The SARU: Search, Access and Raid Utility. To be brief, it's an intelligent hacking engine, almost a whole other hacker in itself. Any mainframe you point it to will soon have its firewalls switched off, its core programming changed… it'll make a computer sit up and dance like a scalded Ronto. Plus, I thought it might make an interesting companion." She thought that covered all the bases.

"You mean… artificial intelligence? I thought they were years away on that." Came Gimpy's voice… but then, someone interrupted.

"Um, the subject of the conversation is _right here_, thank you." The 'program' stated, quite bothered at being treated like mere anti-viral software.

"Oh, yes… well, SARU here will be helping you in whatever ventures you might need: hacking, gaming, quizzes, that sort of thing." She smiled. "Just two things: firstly, never treat our mutual friend as anything other than a full sentient. He'll turn your computer into jelly if he is disrespected."

"Alright. And what's the second thing?" asked Gimpy.

"I ask that you no longer consider me an enemy. Right now, I am neutral, but it would… _honour _me to be considered an ally. And maybe… we could be friends." She knew of the rules he propagated among his merry band of maladjusted geniuses, so would he risk associating with a girl just to gain an ally?

"I'll… have to think about it. Come back on in 3 hours for my response." He stated guardedly before he broke the connection. Of course, 'think about it' would mean 'consult my men', but all she had to do was wait.

Three hours and fifteen minutes later, She-Prime, alias Tabitha Melvin, alias Melian of Valinor, was _very happy_.

* * *

1. It was one of those huge old things in stone, oak and brick, seemingly built like a fortress. 

2.Another name was used, although "The Devils Whre" isn't suitable for polite company. Plus, the glove analogy was superb in itself.

3. Or at the very least a healthy respect borne out of argument.


	12. Further Developments

**Morgoths Bane**

Chapter 12

Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective creators. I am making no money off of this writing venture, but am having a _lot_ of fun in the process of writing.

Authors Note: This chapter is meant to be one of those few, peaceful, introspective chapters I talked about, before violence and burgeoning, burning desire (0.5) change the course of events.

0.5: I swear to several different gods that this will _not_ turn into a cheap romance paperback

Description: After a very, very big disaster, the community around State U began getting a wee bit…_ strange_, especially the trees. Nitz meanwhile begins getting more strange dreams: memories of past events that have been… pleasantly altered.

* * *

**Mid-Afternoon, October 15, 2001; Granmore Building, State U Campus**

"Remember class, the chapter on Pre-Republic Era Gaul will begin on Wednesday. Extra reading material will be available at the Library circulation desk, ask for Ancient European History 2340, Professor White!" Boomed said professor just before the bulk of his class got up to leave. "Oh, and remember that the History Department Costume Party is being held in the old Skinner Studio on the 31st! Admission is one dollar and will be donated to the Archaeology fund. Invite all interested friends and acquaintances!"

Nitz exited the classroom among the throngs of student humanity. Professor White (Nitz wondered if he ever moonlighted as a Mr. Grey) had become exceedingly popular in student circles for his amiable personality, not to mention his interest in all things spooky. The History Students association mixers were a frequent venue for him, his stories, jokes and plain-old good humouredness. Why, it had only been on the first of the month that… well, how many people could believe something as crazy as him blowing ships out of his pipe smoke?

People who knew who he really was: that's who!

Parker walked out of the building and into the crisp autumn air. It was indeed the autumn of the year, if the bright leaves covering the lawn and the trees going bare were not clues enough. Walking along the sidewalk in front of the Quad courtyard, he paused for a minute to let someone pass.

A huge, root-like foot settled gently onto the pavement, bore weight as the other foot advanced, and finally rose again. Nitz looked up into the broad, craggy barked face with deep, sap-veined eyes that was looking back down at him. Think branches swept back from the head, long and curved and thinly bedecked in light orange leaves. Some others of this strange type Nitz could see in the Quad proper, waiting to meet with the previously described individual.

A great many other people would have been made nervous by these beings, but for Parker Eugene Walsh, it was par for the course of the last month. These strange folk had come here September 15th; four days after what was likely the largest and, according to young Ms. Taylor (Gimpy's pre-teen sis) at least, most suspect loss of life on American soil since the Civil War. The whole country, in a state of advanced shock, had rallied around itself and had received almost unanimous international sympathy.

It was in this madness that Kimmy had received and acquiesced to a request from a group of 'pacifistic, isolationist environmentalists' to hold a months-long meeting on the campus green-space surrounding the rowing canal. They just never said what _species_ they were.

They were called, simply, the Eldest. Men had once given them the name of 'Ents', or giants, for their great size, and the Elven-folk still referred to them as the _Onodrim_, which Nitz did not know the translation of. They were, in essence, 'Shepherds of the Forest', beings that had herded trees once upon a time, caring for all living things that could not move or defend themselves.

And somewhere, apparently, they still did.

It had taken a week for anyone to get up the courage to speak to one of these people, and it turned out that, while they were slow to learn the new 'Common tongue' of English, the tree-herders were indeed generally pacifistic. A few students had even began trying to understand the undulating, slow rumble, interspaced with the sound of creaking wood, that was their language. They stuck to the canal and the woods beyond for the most part, venturing onto the campus proper only when a central meeting place was needed for an important session of their 'moot'.

Some still feared them for their size, but most just feared _for_ them, afraid of what would happen to them if the agreed upon silence was broken.

Nitz arrived back at Dunmore Hall, got into the lobby elevator and slumped against the wall. The effort the student body was putting into keeping their guests secret was beginning to be felt physically: from keeping local news reports confined to certain areas to refraining from mentioning the great tree-shepherds in the campus newspaper, the drain was really beginning to show. Perhaps this was a reason why Professor White and his parties had become so popular: between performing parlour ticks, taking up debates about history with other professors and regaling willing students with tales of the strange, the weird and the scary, he was practically rejuvenating and providing diversion to the entire History Students Association.

But that wasn't the reason for his own personal lethargy.

The door opened onto a graffiti-free hallway, and Nitz marched down to the room that Jonah and him shared. Unlocking the door, he put down his books on the dresser, walked over to his bed… and collapsed onto said piece of furniture.

"Tired?" Asked Jonah, reading on his bed. He had decorated the space above with various knickknacks: pennants from town sports teams close to Lindon, promotional pictures from the upcoming Lord of the Rings movie, and, at the centre of it all, a giant _Blues Brothers_ poster with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd sitting on the hood of the Bluesmobile.

"Not very. Ran into Elm-Horn in front of the Quad." Nitz mumbled from a face smothered by blanket. He couldn't recall if the first part had been true denial or dry sarcasm.

"Talk to him?"

"No, just stopped to let him pass."

"Well then, enjoy your nap. Just try not to have any filthy dreams about my sister while I'm in the room." Jonah chuckled as he continued to read his textbook.

"Ha." Grunted Nitz as he settled into the mattress.

Truth be told, that last crack had hit a little close to home. He didn't know why, but his sleep was again being disturbed, ever since the first week of classes. The main difference, however, from last years strangeness was that these dreams were a lot more… _interesting_ than the demonic ones. They were replays of certain events of his freshman year, events that involved both him and his now-ladylove.

One incident had been when they met after they had shed their garments in the annual run-nude-at-midnight-through-first-fall-of-crystallized-water-droplets. The difference was that he and Jesse had _not _gone for 'naked pizza' afterwards, but instead had found a secluded corner and… the thought of it still got him hot under the collar, what with the dreamt feel of snow and masonry against bare skin. And then there was an alternate scenario when he and Jesse had bunked out. Upon his return with supplies and seeing her without her vestments, they had not immediately jumped each other, but had instead waited until that evening to engage in what his maternal aunts referred to as 'Licentious Activities' (1).

But the most recent and prominent dream was an alternate course for the last week of the Winter Term, charmingly labelled 'Screw Week'. In this version, he had not stayed at the party with Kimmy, but had gone back with Jesse to her dorm to 'pack', which had somehow turned into a romantic dinner. What happened afterwards was still giving him cold sweats. Waking up in the middle of the night was what was tiring him so, with sleep becoming a rare luxury in these days of fear, distress and fevered subconscious musings.

Not that he was going to let on to anyone about it. From the looks Elladan and Elrohir had given him, admitting to these dreams would be a one-way ticket to a certain (and likely very humiliating) death.

* * *

**Meanwhile: Tekerson Technical Institute**

Chewbacca was dead, to begin with. He had been this way for approximately two years and two weeks, but only now did there exist a way to truly avenge his death. In the last month, the websites of Del Rey Publishers and the author R. A. Salvatore had been infiltrated and cyber-vandalized nearly non-stop. Messages such, as "The Canon is Dead, Long live Canon!" "For Chewie!" and "May your Amphistaff go Limpid" had been plastered on the Home-pages, with written promises to keep this up until the publishers confessed to knowing the error of their ways occupying nearly every micron of page space.

Currently, many students were huddled around a single monitor, watching the proceedings in awe. No one had ever been this fast or precise in their work, or left so little evidence of direct tampering in the target systems. Even Spud, Justin's arch nemesis, was beginning to show signs of interest towards this phenomenon (2).

Speaking of Justin, he was currently standing back and watching the proceedings. Beside him was an audio feed to the one who had gifted them with this wonder of wonders. "So," began the voice of She-Prime, Born Tabitha Melvin of Brooklyn Heights, New York City. "What will you do if the series continues on like this?"

Gimpy brooded before finally saying, "I'm not sure. If it lightens up soon, we can probably write this off as a bad stretch in the writing… if not…" It was painful to admit, but he may be forced to disavow the rest of the Del Rey publishing run, perhaps even the entire rest of the future 'EU' or Expanded Universe. His former female nemesis had confided to him that the Timothy Zahn _Thrawn_ trilogy was a favourite of hers, along with other Bantam publications such as Andersons '_Young Jedi Knights' _series, _The Courtship of Princess Leia _and _The Bacta War_. Despite this glad news, he wondered if it could ever be the same it was again, after so much violence, death and bad characterization had been inflicted.

If it didn't get better soon… he may have to do the unthinkable.

He may have to swear off _Star Wars_.

"And another thing, when are we going to have an actual meeting?" Asked the female voice, breaking Gimpy's line of thought.

"What, you mean like a video conference?" G-Prime was beginning to sweat again.

"No…" Began She-Prime slowly "I mean an actual face-to-face meeting in the same room." She began snickering as something dawned upon her. "You're _scared_, aren't you? The mighty G-Prime, scared of meeting weak, defenceless _female _in person?"

"I am _not_ afraid!" Shouted Gimpy. When he realized that half his minions were staring at him with perplexed looks, he had to concede to himself that, perhaps, he was a bit nervous. "Well… how about Halloween? It's a nice, round date." When his brain heard that last word, he immediately got fidgety again. "I meant _day_, day. I'd never subject myself to something so beneath me as a…"

"As a _what_?" Asked Tabitha, making it to sound like she was confused about G-Primes back-pedal.

"Nothing, Nothing." Gimpy assured her, confidant that he had dodged a blaster bolt on that one.

This was going to be an interesting period… she couldn't keep the horrible truth from them forever.

The New Jedi Order had claimed another victim.

* * *

**CSJCC Campus, Alpha Alpha Fraternity House**

Romeo 'Rocko' Gambiani was drunk. Well, not really. If he had been, it would have been the perfect excuse to get out what the fraternity Leader was now laying at his feet.

"You want me to _what_?" Rocko half asked, half demanded in his typical bellicose manner. He could still hardly believe that this thin, freckled, orange-haired weakling ran a place as inherently macho as a Frat house. He (Rocko) was currently sprawled on a half-collapsed sofa that the house had not yet decided to throw out.

"It's very simple, Brother Rocko: The house entrusts you with money and a list, you go to the local Wegmans™, select the items on said list, take them to the cashier, pay for them with the allotted funds and bring them back to the house without incident." Explained Craig. "Furthermore, your shirking of fraternity duties is getting tiresome. So I present you with a choice: you can help in the Frat's community projects and upkeep in exchange for ample booze time." He was frowning hard; Rocko had always been something of a sloth, but this couldn't go on any longer.

"That doesn't sound like much of a choice." Replied Rocko, already suspicious.

"It isn't really. But there is a second part to it." Craig snapped his fingers, summoning two big burly looking types to the space behind the decrepit couch. "Lift him." At Craig's command, they hauled Rocko up to eye level by the arms. "And, if by some chance, you choose to further neglect your duties and/or bring shame to this fraternity…" Craig leaned in close "I will take it upon myself to make your life into one, long, continuous _Hell_ for the next 3 years. How does that sound?"

Rocko, faced with this choice of the "signature or brains' variety, came to a swift conclusion. "Alright already, I'll do the stupid shopping and community service stuff."

"I'm glad you see things our way." Craig handed the list to Rocko who, after being released by the toughs, snatched it away and began memorizing it.

Perhaps there was hope for him after all.

* * *

**A little while later, back at Dunmore Hall**

Jesse wandered into the dorm wearing a blue hooded sweater, her cargos and her characteristic smile. "Hey bro." Jonah snapped off a wave while engrossed in a textbook. "Hey Nitz" At this, Nitz actually snapped up, woken from a slumber.

"Jesse! What brings you here?" Asked Nitz, who, in all honesty, had never been very good at small talk.

"Brody's setting up a movie-night tomorrow at 6. It's _The Blues Brothers_ if you're interested." She seemed to direct that specific remark to her brother. "Anything happening in the History Dept?" she asked Nitz.

"There's a costume party on Halloween. It's open to students and invitees and the admission is a buck." Nitz decided to act. "In fact," He began. "Would you?"

"Would I what? Go to this party?"

."Yeah. On kind of a date, I suppose." In all his five months correspondence and his approximate six weeks of actual contact, they had only been on one actual date since that day in her hometown burger-joint. It had been in late September at a local Chinese place where he had ended up breaking seventeen pairs of chopsticks in a night before pulling out his emergency fork. He was unsure as whether to count their first year of friendship as part of their relationship, but considering the creative mental accounting he would have to do, he doubted it.

"Sure. I'll probably have finished up the first draft of my essay that week, and I have nothing else planned."

"I'll go too!" Exclaimed Jonah, suddenly springing up.

"Why?" It's not that Jesse was suspicious that her brother would want to go a party; gods knew he deserved it after being persona non-gratis to the student body last year. It was just his quickness and apparent franticness in volunteering that made her wonder.

"I have an idea for a costume, and by the way, I have to talk to Brody." Jonah got up with his book and walked past his sister out the door.

But Jesse did have to wonder… what _was_ up?

* * *

Footnotes 

1. And with Gytha, Estelle and Sophie, you could _hear _the capitalization.

2. Not that it was necessarily a good thing.


	13. Event of the Season

Morgoths Bane

Morgoths Bane

Chapter 13

Disclaimer: This fanfiction is just that: writing based on the characters and settings of copyrighted works for entertainment purposes. I own nothing. Star Wars belongs to Lucasarts and 20th Century Fox

Summary: Wherein Cal makes an unusual appearance; Rocko makes a disgruntled visit, and Nitz and Jesse shop for rented costumes. A party unfolds; garments are temporarily disheveled and disasters are averted… for now. Also, Star Wars gets taken way too seriously over at Tekerson… as usual

A/N: All right people, _this _is where things take a turn for the Mature in the ratings department, and I take the precaution soley for the sake of some blunt talk about that most intimate of intimates. However, there will be no explicit scenes in this story, seeing as the authorhas no first-hand experience and hates the thought of copying (which might also explain the weakness in the stuff leading to the main Plot Complication). Plus, it's not that essential to the story so I might as well leave it out and focus on the wheeling and dealing of fate and fortunes.

P.S: In case anyone asks, I _do_ tend towards the melodramatic.

* * *

**Dunmore Hall, October 27 (a Saturday), 2001**

Nitz fixed his cap onto his head and once more studied himself in the mirror. Outright preening was not his common grooming ritual, but today him and Jesse were going to a small costume rental-shop on the east side of campus in order to pick up costumes for Wednesdays party. Jonah had gone out this morning for something or other, and since Nitz figured that anything that Jonah kept hush about didn't concern humans, he consciously decided not to go looking for him. He hoped for the rest of the day to be relatively peaceful and free of distractions.

Of course, when one is a close friend of Romeo "Rocko" Gambiani, one should never expect a peaceful and distraction-free day.

The door swung open, where in burst Rocko, a paper grocery held under his left arm while he grumbled, occasionally aloud. "Stupid Craig. Stupid 'responsibilities', Stupid groceries!" Rocko began to raise the bag up as if to smash it upon the floor, but then thought better of it.

"Hello to you too." Replied Nitz, knowing full well that Rocko had not been referring to him. He turned to face his large friend. "The frat duties getting to you already? What's it been, two weeks?"

"12 days… It's my second trip." Complained Rocko. "And they had to put me on Saturday duty. It's Saturday for crissakes!"

"Only one day a week? That seems a bit… well, _light_ to be complaining about anything." Nitz knew that Rocko had been extremely unreceptive to any sort of work that did not involve either booze or debauchery, but this did seem a little extreme even for that. "Was there anything else?"

Rocko, seeing an opportunity to vent, did so. "Of course there is. I was prepared to do the damn shopping: fill the fridge, restock the first aid supplies or do condom runs if someone asked. _Perfectly_ in line with what a frat embodies" He paused for breath. "But then, just this morning, that wimp Craig said that I'll have to shovel snow this winter, and not just on the sidewalk either. I'll have to go up on that _crappy_ roof and scrape off layers of snow feet deep because 'the rafters aren't as strong as they used to be' or some crap like that. And then they'll have me clipping hedges and mowing grass in the spring!" As if to make a point, Rocko pulled a brand new pair or hedge clippers, still tied on their cardboard backing, and held the end two inches from Nitzs' nose. "Not to mention all of this 'community service' bull that they tried to get me to do last year!"

Nitz, unique in the modern age as having survived the Black Breath of a Morgul Wraith and having recovered from it with no lasting damage, nevertheless did not appreciate sharp metal objects being waved at his face (safety ties and cardboard notwithstanding). "Rocko, have you ever considered that fraternities are not just about hazing, alcohol, and animal abuse involving goats?"

"Nitz, I respect you as a friend and as a… a guy that does the thinking, but that's just crazy talk." Rocko's brow furrowed for a moment, as if wondering about something. "And what are you taking about with the goats?"

"Don't you know?" Asked Nitz.

"I thought they were for pranks, like putting in car driver seats or in deans' offices. Or possibly for cooking."

So Nitz told him. The whole sordid fraternity stereotype.

"What the hell? People are desperate enough to force themselves on innocent livestock? Please tell me that it only applies to complete losers unable to get any _human_ tail." For the first time in their aquaintance, Nitz thought that Rocko actually looked _appalled_ at something.

"Actually, it's portrayed as a pretty widespread stereotype for fraternity members. You'd know that if you actually watched any fraternity films above the PG-13 rating."

Rocko made a move to say something in his defense, but at that moment they heard a familiar voice outside the dorm room window. And seeing as they were four levels up, something odd was definitely going on. Nitz walked over to the window, peered out and became very surprised indeed when Cal Evans, resident RA, friend, ladies man and nincompoop, repelled down the exterior wall to face him.

"Hey Nitz guy. Hey best friend Rocko guy." Cal greeted them in his usual manner. He was wearing a climbing harness complete with pads and helmet.

"Cal… what are you doing?" Nitz asked warily, having never seen anything quite like this before.

"It turns out RA's aren't allowed to have ladies in their rooms," Cal slurped. "So instead we're going rock climbing."

"We?" Queried Nitz. He opened the window and leaned out, before turning his head to the right to see several attractive women in rock climbing equipment were also employed in this sport. "Your girlfriends?" He asked his blonde associate.

"Yeah." A watch beeped on Cal's person and he glanced at it. "Oh, sorry Nitz guy, but me and the nice ladies have to go now. Bye." Cal continued repelling down the exterior wall, Nitz looking after him.

"Do you think he knows that that rule was rescinded in 1987?" Nitz turned back towards Rocko, who was removing the backing from the hedge shears. He only knew this because he had agreed to help Cal with some studying for the informal entry test, and had picked up some small knowledge while leafing through the book one idle day.

"They probably told him that to get rid of him." Rocko came to the window, wielding the shears, and made to place several of Cal's safety lines between the blades. Preparing to sever the lines, Rocko did still turn to Nitz, as if to gain his approval. "Cut?" he asked.

Nitz sighed. No Rocko, no 'Cut'." Grudgingly, Rocko withdrew from the window and Nitz closed it. "By the way, your vocal skills are improving. I guess it helps when you actually interact with people that aren't drunk, your friends or familiar enough with you to not like you."

"Yeah, whatever." Rocko mumbled, proving that this improved vocabulary was not a constant thing. "So, are you doing anything?"

"Yes actually. Jesse and I are going to rent our costumes for the History Students Association Halloween party, so unless you want to go and have the dollar admission, this trip isn't for you." Nitz answered as he slipped his coat on.

"You know, you were a lot more fun when you were chasing that hippy chick." Commented Rocko as he put the shears away.

"I thought I wasn't any fun at all, from the way you guys went on."

"You weren't, and your obsessing was pretty pathetic. But at least you weren't always running off to be with an actual girlfriend, one that actually liked you." Rocko shrugged as he followed Nitz out the door. "We always assumed that we could find you after you got discouraged with Kimmy."

"Things change, Rocko. And it's not always to ways that are necessarily convenient." Nitz locked the door, and then walked away, leaving Rocko literally holding the bag.

"Well… yeah. And I think I'll go to that party. And I hope there's at least a little booze there!" This was the last Nitz heard of his friend as he went out.

**20 minutes later, Bodkin Street, 10 blocks from the State U Quad**

Jesse trudged behind Nitz through the stiff autumn gale that had set upon the town just after they had set out, the wind at their backs. They had first taken the campus bus to the nearest stop, but it was still two blocks to the costume shop they sought, so they had to walk the rest of the way.

There were other stores, of course, but only this one had a good chance of having the costumes they desired.

A sudden gust suddenly changed direction and hit them in their faces, blowing Jesse's hood back and nearly taking Nitzs' hat off of his head **(1)**. When Jesse stopped to adjust her hood, she noticed just which shop they had halted before.

The display window was filled with all the material paraphernalia of infants and the accompanying parenthood. From cribs and mobiles to strollers, car seats and highchairs, this was the kind of display specifically designed to make a woman's biological clock get up and… well, tick louder, one would suppose. And when that sort of cynical marketing ploy is mixed into a hotbed of young adult hormones, prophecy, and supernatural forces pulling at ones brain… it can cause one to _really __think_.

Jesse just looked at the window for a minute; her imagination beginning to wander back to that long ago spring morning… before Nitz broke her out of it. He was standing beside her, and, just for a second, he too looked at the store window.

But for some reason, he shook it off almost immediately. "Come on, the place isn't very far away." He turned started walking on their original course. "The Shop is closing in about two hours, so if we want the most time to make our choices, we should get moving."

Jesse, her eyes lingering for another instant on the window, followed him.

The "Ye Olde Anachronistic Costume Shoppe" was the only place in the college-town of Yewtown that catered to the costume needs of those wanting to travel back to before Queen Victoria croaked. From Greco-roman togas and reproduction lorica segmenta armour to pith helmets, various uniforms and buckled shoes, the selection was massive. The drawback was that their rental prices were often termed 'excessive', with their buyout prices being called 'highway robbery', but this was perhaps justified when one considered that these were top quality costumes, and that it was expensive to create, repair and replace them.

For the HSA Halloween costume party, for example, a set of costumes from the 18th and 19th centuries were what they sought and, after one and a half hours of searching, they found what they had been looking for.

**Skinner Studio (overlooking Rowing Canal #2), October 31****st****, 6 PM.**

The History Student Association's Halloween Costume Party had been, for the last 20 or so years, one of the premiere social events of the late autumn, just behind the famous 'Exposed Expo' of the winter's first snowfall.

As such, it wasn't anything that Rocko (_not_ Romeo, not even to his friends) would usually attend. It had no kegs of beer, no porn, and not much other alcohol besides some fancy wines at the refreshment table. On the plus side, it afforded him an opportunity to wear his favourite costume of all time: A giant papier-mâché replica of his own head. And also fists for his hands.

But although it certainly made an impression, he thought as his papier-mâché forehead dented against a low joist, it did make maneuvring a little difficult.

Soon, he found himself at the edge of the dance floor. Behind him, a female voice chuckled, almost drowned out by the band performing its "Hail Columbia" set. "Well, I always thought you had a big head, but this is just ridiculous." Impeded by the large construction on his shoulders, he slowly turned around until he saw who commented on his costume, although he already knew who it was. It was, in fact, Jesse dressed in a 19th century nurse get up, like that Nightingale chick on the History Channel.

"You know, that get up may be bulky as hell, but it still shows you off pretty nice." He had always, in his own lecherous and carnal way, appreciated Jesse, or at least her mortal coil. But as something pointy nudged the space between his shoulder blades, he began thinking that he should not have phrased that last sentence quite that way.

"Aye, it does. An' if ye ken what's good fer ye, ye'll keep yer een tae yerself." Said an oddly familiar voice, one being modulated in an accent the voice obviously wasn't very used to. The point withdrew and a hand gripped his shoulder and turned him around, revealing the person to be one other than Nitz himself. He was unshaven, his hair was shaggy and it looked as if someone had applied a fake wart to the left side of his nose. His dress was of an archaic style: a ratty brown overcoat, worn over a brown vest and a linen shirt that was accented by a red handkerchief. On his legs was a pair of knee britches above red and white striped stockings and a pair of worn, buckled, leather shoes. In effect, Nitz had been turned into a sailor of the early 18th century… or a pirate from similar.

"Nitz? It that you?" Rocko was astonished. This did not look at all like the reserved, well-trimmed Nitz Walsh that he had come to know and grudgingly respect. Instead, this was the image of a pirate that had been living out of taverns for the past twenty years, drowning his liver and boring the patrons. The make-up to give his skin a sallow sheen to it only highlighted the effect.

"Aye… and by that, I mean yes, it's me." Nitzs' voice changed back to normal as he sheathed his replica cutlass. "I assume you paid the admission?"

"Of course. Though I gotta' say, this party isn't the best value for a dollar I've ever been to." He looked down at the sword that had so recently prodded him. "Revenge for the hedge clippers?"

"Not really… I just know a rake when I see one." He strolled over to Jesse and took her by the arm. "Shall we head tae the dance, bonnie lassie?" He asked Jessie courteously.

"Only if you drop the cheesy accent." Jesse said sternly as she looked Nitz in the eye.

There was a pause.

"You're serious, aren't you?" Nitz asked, clearly out of his depth.

Jesses' stony face suddenly flickered into a joking smile. "_Almost_." She began chuckling. "Come on. I hear a party I'm not at and that doesn't sit right with me at all." She led Nitz onto the crowded dance floor; Nitz looked back and offered his friend a conciliatory smile. Rocko could only shake his head as he followed them. _Romance_… he was glad that _he_ was never going to fall for that crap.

The party was, at the moment, more 'party' than any form of dancing. The parade songs they were playing were not anything that anyone could even remotely dance to, so the crowd was generally milling about. People were eating, drinking, excusing themselves to flush the final products of food and drink, and also excusing themselves (often in pairs) to do things in no way related to food at all. And of course, many people were just talking on various subjects.

And, as usual when it came to History Student Association functions held this year, 'Professor White' was right in the middle of it. He was wearing the armour of a Crusades-Era knight, mail coif and hauberk with plate-mail covering the feet, shins, forearms and hands. Atop that, his tabard was a deep blue with a strange pattern of two trees intertwined, one in gold thread and the other in silver. By his side hung a sheathed arming sword, on his back was a heraldically shaped shield and under his right arm a cylindrical Great-Helm. As such, it was only a costume that someone with a deep interest in the medieval period would apply, most of the commercial costumes being the full plate suits and visored helms from late in the period. Suffice it to say, he knew his stuff.

After making their introductions and doing some mandatory socializing, the pair reconvened at the punch bowl, where they quickly discovered that no one had taken it upon themselves to perform the traditional spiking. Some years people used rum, others had found it enjoyable to use vodka so that no one would taste the difference until people started throwing up and falling down. And then there had been that one year when the punch had been spiked with something so strong that, at one sip, the poor bastard who had drunk it had began talking gibberish, with his eyes rolling around in his head and steam coming out of his ears. Needless to say, they'd called the bomb squad on that one.

"Nitz?" Asked Jesse casually, holding one of the humorous second-hand punch cups in both hands.

"Yeah?" Replied Nitz, who was watching the door for Jonah's and Brodies alleged big entrance.

"I've been thinking about something... kind of weird." She drained her cup and put it down on the table.

"What do you mean _weird_?" Asked Nitz interestedly, thinking that anything she'd consider weird with her family must be truly bizarre.

"The thing is, Nitz, that Mithrandir said there was something inside your head for the last few years. Some sort of strange, ethereal, mind-altering parasite. And that it possessed me too... which would explain that monster headache I had that day you did that big spiel with the tux." She was approaching the subject cautiously... a bit too cautiously compared to her public demeanour.

"Well, that's what he tells me. With all that I've seen, I don't quite know what's real and what isn't anymore. Why do you ask?" Nitz was getting one of those feelings of his; the ones that he got right before a "posterity moment" happened. So far, these had either been moments of great discovery or of great danger where he had been almost shot, rendered insane or ripped into little pieces. Given that, his level of worry was slowly rising.

"Nitz... I don't know how you're going to answer this, so I'm preparing myself for anything. What I want to know is what you believe would have happened last year had we not been possessed by some strange, eldritch thingy from the depths of the Void. What would have happened... between us?"

Of all the questions Jesse may have put forth, especially given the recent fevered dreams Nitz had been experiencing, none of them could have been more awkward in the answering than this one. "Well... I believe that, firstly, Kimmy wouldn't have preoccupied me nearly as much as she did. There would have been the occasional wistful fantasy, maybe, throughout high-school. Maybe I would have had the idea of her as some sort of unattainable prize. But…" Nitz paused, gathering his inner resolve. "Probably, from the moment I found you rummaging around in my and Cal's stuff, I would have probably paid a lot more attention to you. No stupid obsessing over Kimmy, no blowing you off constantly to be around her and certainly no shirking my friends... for Kimmy, I mean. For you I might have. And then there's the time we were both buck naked at the expo and I, well... didn't react to you, or anyone for that matter. In the sense that I... uh..." Now it was getting awkward again.

"You would've needed your hat to cover your bits, huh?" Jesse grinned, the relaxed attitudes and wryness she had adopted for her campus life surfacing again.

"Well... yeah." Yep, this was awkward. "Um... well, there's a few more things concerning those possible happenings that I would like to discuss... but I believe they would be better described... in _private_."

"Sure." Replied Jesse as if it was the most normal thing in the world. "Where do you want to go?"

Nitz cast several glances around the dance floor, eventually locating a stairway up into one of the old private lofts that were once used by the more controversial or less scrupulous artists. "How about up there?" He pointed to the relevant flight of stairs.

"Looks good." Confirmed Jesse. At that moment, the music switched to the Blues Brothers version of the _Peter Gunn_ theme. As if on cue on the first horn movement, the doors to the outside opened and in walked Brodie and Jonah. Both were wearing the same essential costume: black suit jacket, black suit pants, black shoes, white dress shirt, back necktie, black hats, and black sunglasses. With the briefcase and the pair of handcuffs holding the case onto Jonahs wrist, the pair was, in actuality, a pretty good match for the fictional Jake and Elwood Blues, stature wise.

"And I think we should go right now." Nitzs' voice was uncharacteristically rushed as he took Jesse's hand and hurried toward said staircase.

This was not unnoticed by Jonah, although he chose not to do anything about it. He merely leaned against the wall, got comfy and checked his pocket for the device he was relying on tonight. He just hoped those tags he attached to their clothes would hold.

Brodie... now, he was a real character. He was the one who'd thought up this act for tonight. Besides his sister, he was the first real friend or acquaintance he'd had in this place. He'd have to thank Jesse one day for introducing him to her 'crew' because, freaks and geeks that they were, they were extremely interesting people. Brodie shared his interest in movies, if not quite knowing when to stop talking about them. Krueger was probably the foulest mouth on campus, but sometimes he did have an insight, or at least a point. And Dan was just Dan, as there was simply no other way to describe him.

And if Eldamar Technologies' newest movie-inspired device didn't work as it was supposed to, he didn't know how the twins would react, but they'd almost certainly try to do something to young Mr. Walsh. He honestly worried about them… meaning both Nitz and Jesse. Not only were Elladan and Elrohir getting a bit... _itchy_ about Nitz being in such close proximity to their kings' daughter, but something had the man and woman on their hit-list, something that not only had access significant resources both monetary and arms-wise, but was also in the service of/served by supernatural and possibly evil forces.

'Well, here's to Noldorin technology.' thought Jonah as he slugged back the punch from the cup Brodie had just handed him. Outloud, he only said "Thanks." in a blunt, concise, 'Elwood-y' manner.

**Meanwhile...**

The loft was... let this author put it like this: During the era when this was a working studio, many kinds of art had been studied and attempted here. There were professional portraits, nature scenes of the campus, and still-lifes of bowls of fruit and the like. And then there was a special type of still life that involved men and women not wearing their drawers. Some people say that the human body was an artistic treasure onto itself, but some people took the appreciation of such to obscene levels; pillaging for instance.

The scandal that had led to cancellation of the art program... or at least the part that required people to take off their clothes, had involved an art teacher taking advantage of the authority he held over several females in his class some 50 years ago. Some acts had been voluntary... some, not so. At the time, there was some debate whether the closure was an overreaction to a single incident, perhaps a concession to easily offended social conservatives... but that is neither here nor there in relation to the present scene.

Jesse was perched on the edge of a set-piece bed, watching Nitz pace back and forth, hands grasped behind his back. She was getting a little agitated by his also agitated behaviour. "Nitz, you're gonna wear a hole in the floor! Will you just sit down, stop jittering and say what you came up here to say?!"

Nitz complied, though it was not easy. Ever since the eldritch presence of his parasite had fled him, he had found it difficult to discuss subjects related to the intimate. In his first year of post-secondary education, he had fantasized about such things at will, and sometimes spoken glibly about the prospect of decidedly sexual encounters with Ms. Burton. But now, he was now reduced to the but the quivering puddle he had been during the three days co-habitation with Jesse. And what he was about to discuss was decidedly intimate: thoughts, dreams, desires, fears... not to mention passions.

"So.. " Jesse began slowly. "you were talking about last year's Expo. About your reaction, or lack thereof... to me?" She would not have normally blushed talking of such things, but then, she had always spoken in the abstract.

"Yeah... it was weird. Cold or not, something should have happened, or even when we went back inside." It was strange, or not, depending on how one looked at it. On one hand, the natural reaction of a red-blooded American male (even if he wasn't Rocko) would have been for his reproductive protuberance to be at full mast. From that, such a lack of response to such a specimen of near-human womanhood as Jesse would usually point to outside intervention, either that of the ghoul that had twisted his desires, or of something important having been cut off. On the other hand, it _was_ cold.

"And... if it had?" Asked Jesse.

"Well... that was what I wanted to talk about." he let out a deep breath and inhaled again in preparation. "I've been having dreams. They're not just any dreams mind you... they're always _repeats_ of certain parts of my first year at this place. And they're always different from what actually happened." To say that he was bashful... nervous... afraid that she would slap him and leave when he told her of what he had dreamed, would be perfectly accurate at this point.

"Well... the first dream sort of... picks up from when you and me met up at the Expo. I.. ah... well, I _reacted_. And then..." He stopped.

"Go on." Goaded Jesse.

"I guess that... we... meaning you and me... retreated to a small jag between two of the buttresses on the auditorium. And then..." 'I have to be a man about this' thought Nitz. " I remember the feel of cold grass, dirt and snow around my feet, the feeling of my hand pressing against cold brick... and my other arm..." He gulped "around you. And then there was breathing and whispers and then.. well, it felt like the back of my head blew out."

"So... we had sex?" Jesse ventured, returning to a more blunt manner of speaking.

"I guess.. yeah." Nitz admitted, felling a little better now that the first part was over with..

"You gotta admit though, it is a bit dumb." Jesse chuckled a little

Nitz became disheartened, thinking that she was referring to the general theme of the discussion. "Oh." He said weakly.

Realizing the misunderstanding, Jesse hurried to explain. "Nitz, I didn't mean that your entire dream-fantasy thing was dumb, it's just that... that kind of activity makes you awfully sweaty. And considering how cold it was, with me going for pizza just to get in a warm building, doing that sort of thing outside would have probably got us pneumonia. If we _had _done that, we probably should have gone back to my place."

Thinking about it, Nitz probably realized that that one aspect of the dream was probably pure fantasy. But the next one was invariably more likely... he thought.

"There _are_ others, you know." Nitz said, subconsciously moving closer to Jesse.

"Such as?" Jesse was looking as comfortable as he was feeling nervous.

"Like... remember that time I was staying in your dorm, I came back with the groceries, you dropped your towel in surprise and I got a full look at you in the... _natural_?

Jesse held up her hand. "Let me guess: we immediately jumped each other and began doing the nasty on Charitys' bed?" At least she was amused. Nitz thought, rather than disgusted.

"Actually, it was a lot more complicated than that. You still had to leave for your Bio lab... but I did manage to squeeze out a request for a date that night. We went to that Argentine place on the corner of Bodkin and Keel... more beef and white bread than I have ever seen in my life. Then we got a few sodas, seeing as I couldn't get past a bouncer if my life depended on it. We went back to the dorm... we talked... and after I said that, without exception, you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen... we, well... yeah, we had sex."

"See, that wasn't so hard, was it?" Jesse gently teased him. Nitz really had become too cautious and stunted in his romantic endeavors... well, that's not entirely true, considered Jesse. The light stuff he was fine with: hand holding, kissing, hugging, the occasional unconscious contact or footsies: mainly acceptable courting or only mildly scandalous... by Victorian standards. Hell, he could even work his way up to first base with only a mild case of the shivers. But after that... he seemed hopeless sometimes. It was almost as if he had reverted to a grade-school attitude about sex.

"No... it wasn't." Nitz, for his part, was rather relieved that it was going so well. He couldn't very well mess this up by going into what was arguably the mushiest, most sentimental of the dreams.

"Wanna hear about the last one?" He was much more relaxed now, thinking that this description, being more potentially "romantic", wouldn't be so "freakish".

"Might as well. I've already heard two and knowing you, it can't be that different." Answered Jesse.

"Actually... this one is... _kinda_ different." Nitz gestured with his hand for affect.

"_Kinda_? Nitz, I think I know you well enough that what I'm about to suggest is pure crap, but this doesn't involve anything... _weird_, does it?" Asked Jesse with mild concern.

"Um, no, I don't think so. It's just that, in this dream, I began feeling guilty about ignoring you at that last party. I left before all the screaming began, I went back to the dorm, I opened the door... and there you were with a table, food, candles, soft music and... wierdest of all... you were wearing a dress." Parker, knowing her dress habits almost exclusively from her campus persona, had considered this a very strange thing for her to do.

Jesse's eyes opened wide in shock at what he had described. Trying to remain calm, she asked the next question slowly "What _kind_ of dress?"

"Um..." Nitz began getting nervous again, hoping that nothing would ruin 'the moment'. "It wasn't anything really remarkable, certainly not anything really revealing. It was blue... a light blue. It was sort of like a cocktail dress or one of the original Chanels from the 20's. Skirt cut at the knee, sleeves to about the mid-point of the forearm, big flat collar-thing across the upper chest... though for some reason you weren't wearing any shoes or socks."

Jesse just sat there, staring at him. He had, in almost perfect detail, just described the one dress of hers that did not immediately cause her to cringe in embarressment. It was the dress she had worn on her 17th and 18th birthday celebrations, the one she had worn to more to more than a few social functions... and the dress in which she had waited for him on the last night of Screw Week.

"What? Was that part at all... weird?" Asked Nitz.

"Um... no." Jesse finally replied. "It's just..." She lowered her voice to a near whisper. "You just described _precisely _what was in my dorm: me, the food, the dress, _everything_. Did Jonah tell you any of that?"

"I swear he didn't. But are you telling me that you were actually waiting for me? I thought that we were just going to finish packing your stuff." If this meant what he thought it meant, then...

"Nitz, I finished all my packing in the afternoon. I'd been working myself up all day trying to think how to tell you how I felt about you. Then I prepared that romantic thing; I was going to tell you _everything... _about the town, my folks, my neighbours... that I liked you." Jesse sighed before continuing. " I was going to ask... no, _confront_ you about why you were always chasing the redhead, _why_ she always took precedence over someone you actually did things with and what _she_ had that I _didn't_?" She looked up from where her face had been looking down. "Any of it familiar?"

"Yeah... it is. But... how?" Nitz had never really payed much thought to any notion of a higher power. Actually, despite being nominally Episcopalian on his fathers side and semi-observant Presbyterian on Anne's, church had always been the domain of weddings, funerals and social events far too large for the local halls (except for that 'virgin' trip he'd been on that time). And right now, those higher powers were extremely thankful for that lack of thought.

It was probably a very good thing that Irmo had set a short-term self destruct on the memory engrams encoded into the dreams he had sent into Parker's head. Nitz still had the romantic feelings towards Jesse in his subconscious, and that was the goal. What he lacked was the disturbing feeling that someone or something had again been meddling with his desires the way the ghoul had been; the horrible, gut-wretching thought that his _love_ for this beautiful woman was just another supernatural powerplay and somehow less genuine; less _real_. It_ was_ real though, just a bit... hastened.

"I don't know. And with my family and circle of friends, you probably just got a dose of our congential weirdness. But unless you want to end this right now, you'll tell me what you dreamt we did. Understood?"

Nitz snapped out of the thoughtful daze he'd been in. "Oh.. yeah... well, we ate, of course. We listened to some of that chambre music stuff that Cal's mom likes so much. We talked... you basically said all that stuff about why would I go after a woman who barely knew I was alive, and why I couldn't see what was right in front of me. And I guess... I realized I had been a bit of a twit." He decided that he might as well get on with it. "We also, kinda, did have sex afterwords, being Screw Week and all."

"Of course." Jesse agreed.

"But it wasn't nearly as frantic or chaotic-seeming as the other times. I don't know if this sounds stupid or not, but it wasn't so much _sex_ as... well, the term is 'making love'." Boy, did Nitz feel like a sap, and that's sap as in Grade-A, 100 Canadian Maple Syrup.

"That's really... nice." Jesse leaned over to him, even though the exercise was seemingly pointless given their proximity.

On a completely unrelated note, the (relative) heaviness of their costumes combined with the heating systems in the Studio and the body heat from the main floor was raising the temperature, so to speak.

Nitz, suddenly feeling a lot warmer than when he had first sat down, tugged at his collar with one finger. "Yeah... nice." It seemed that, in the process of talking, they'd gone from sitting a reasonable and respectable distance from eachother to being practically conjoined. "Um... Jesse. Is it just me or are you hot... I mean warm, temperature wise?" Well, of course Jesse was _hot_, as in extremely attractive, possessing an exotic beauty not only in her non-euro-american background, but something, if just a sliver, from her non-human side. But she also was getting a bit warm, judging from the beads of sweat on her face.

"Yeah. And I thought these costumes were a good idea with how cool it was getting." She took off her archaic nurse-cap and began fanning herself with it. Right now Nitz's libido was getting hammered by an image out of any young mans' casual fantasies. Her tan skin, dark eyes, the sweat... it was all leading his thoughts to one precise zenith.

"Jesse?" asked Nitz in a shallow, breathy voice.

"Yeah?" Jesse leaned forward until they were almost nose to nose.

"Would it be... weird of me to ask if we could just... take off our outer layers... just to cool down?" It may not have been the best pick-up line in all of creation, and in many other situations, it would have been met with either derisive laughter or threats of violent bodily harm, but it was the boldest thing that Nitz had ever attempted on a girl without his libido being driven by some void-spawn birthed in the blackest dreams of men.

And, in a move that was completely and totally unexpected... Jesse actually agreed.

"Not at all." Jesse smiled at Nitz and pulled her face away as she sat upright. She laid her cap on the bed ands began unfastening the broach that held her cape on **(2).**

Nitz shuffed off the heavy overcoat, but that did little to diffuse the radiant heat he was feeling.

"Any cooler? Jesse asked, turning to him again.

"Ah..." Nitz didn't quite know if he actually was, for his attention was increasingly focused on the woman before him. "No, I don't think so." Now Jesse had leaned towards him again.

"Well, talking about stuff like this can make someone a little hot under the collar." Jesse and Nitz's faces were no more than two inches from each other. Most situations like this would normally, in a narrative-consistent fashion, lead to the achievement of first base or further. And as Jesse coyly plucked the fake wart off of Nitz's nose and they both, simultaneously, moved into a kiss that could turn into something serious, the moment promised to be a fateful one.

Sometimes, however, fate can have a cruel sense of timing.

The door opened and in stepped Jonah in full costume, shades down, briefcase in hand and his face a carefully blank slate. This didn't flinch when he witnessed his sister and her boyfriend laying on the bed, lips suctioning together and their hands acting as if they were independently intelligent life-forms. "Am I interupting something?" He asked innocently

Not surprisingly, both Nitz and Jesse stood straight up at the sound of a human voice, their clothes disheveled and faces flushed. As both of them began to try to put themselves back in order, Jesse answered quite abruptly in the positive. "Actually, you were. Is there a reason why you came in here, or are you acting as the Twin's long arm again?" In the background Nitz was trying to figure out how to reattach the wart, but finally gave up.

"_Actually_, there is. Me and Broadie are about to do the schtick. I just figured my sister and her significant other would like to see it." Jonah said before gesturing for Jesse and Nitz to proceed down the stairs. Lagging behind them for a moment, Jonah paused to take a small handheld-device out of his pocket. It was a small touch-screen within a golden frame, with a small dial below the screen and on the screen itself, the words "Virgin Alarm" blinking in white against a blue background.

Thank you, Mr. Brooks.

As the group reached the dance floor, Jesse asked Jonah something that had been troubling her for days. "Bro, I don't doubt that if you and Broadie plan something it'll have a lot of effort put into it; the amount of work he puts into his scripting projects probably means that he's been staying up nights worrying about choreography. But Rhythm & Blues karaoke? You know as well as I do that karaoke doesn't draw much interest out here, and doing it with Blues Brothers songs? I just hope you have an escape route planned."

"Sis, sis, sis, you worry far too much... _of course_ I have an escape route planned!" Jonah smiled at his sister, and then began loping towards the backstage. Eventually, the houselights dimmed, the spotlight came on, the DJ did his Cab Calloway impression, and Broadie and Jonah made their appearance. Jonah had even cut his normally long hair to get into character.

It was Jonah who broke character for a moment to shout something out over the mike. "I'd like to dedicate this song to my sis and her boyfriend. Because, when you get right down to it... Everybody needs Somebody to Love."

**Tekerson Technical Institute, Parking Lot B, 10PM**

Tabitha shivered through the rough woolen robe she wore. When she envisioned a first meeting with the ever elusive G-Prime, she didn't think she'd be out past tricker-treating hours on Halloween in a cold parking lot with hundreds of other socially ineffectual Web junkies wearing what amounted to articacts from the Jedi Purge. In fact, she was pretty sure this thing still had the original blaster holes and lightsaber slashes.

But there she was; standing beside an alter/slab/cremation plinth in front of a veritable mass of people in similar dark brown robes. Personally, she thought this was all a bit much.

Sure, the new novels in the Star Wars continuity were taking on a tone of prolonged conflict where the heroes were doing poorly. Sure, two major characters had already gone down in blazes of 'Glory': one the beloved and ever present sidekick of the Original Trilogy, Chewbacca; the other the youngest and more enigmatic son of Han and Leia, Anakin Solo of the Expanded Universe. Both had died, more or less, heroically and in grand fashion. But there were some fans that were taking these events as a sign that new publishers were screwing with traditional and well loved formulas in the name of boosting sales, introducing a gritty "realism" to the franchise and moving the canon away from Space Fantasy to a "hard sci-fi" direction.

In short, they didn't like it at all. They disliked the idea so much, in fact, that they were now holding a cremation ceremony for the "Spirit of Star Wars" here in the parking lot, which apparently involved chanting a funeral dirge version of the "Force Theme" while standing around on a cold night wearing jedi garb.

This was, without a doubt, the most embarrassing thing she'd ever been involved in.

But, as Gimpy and a few of his closest associates carried the pall up the aisle, she began considering that maybe a bit of catharsis was good for these guys.

The "Spirit", basically a dummy built from rags and twigs, was placed upon the plinth and the crowd fell silent.

Gimpy turned to the assembled. "We gather here to remember days of glory and deeds great! We gather here to remember heroism and villainy as two sides of a coin, but never confused!" He pulled back his hood to reveal that his normally spastic face was grim and stony. "But we also gather to remember what once was, and may never be again! A time when hope was the lifeblood of a Galaxy Far Far Away. When heroes actually stood a chance!" For the first time in a very long while, Gimpy began looking depressed. "And that time, my comrades, has already passed. Now, all that can be done is to say goodbye... and to do so in a fitting manner!"

And thus the effigy, symbolic of all that was once loved about the Star Wars franchise, was set alight in the manner of a Jedi cremation. As the flames rose and embers floated into the dark sky, the students of the technical college **(3)** stood in awe of the spectacle. As she watched Tabitha, a young woman increasingly at odds over just who or what she was, thought that perhaps, just perhaps, peoples' thought and emotions were important in their own right, and not just in the grand scheme of things.

And for that, she was really beginning to grate at the attitudes of her coworkers.

* * *

Footnotes:

1. It might be said that it was his only one left, after Cal had used his others for door prizes during last years Screw Week

2. In truth, the costume wasn't actually an original Florence Nightingale. Florence had worn a much longer headdress and a more utilitarian apron over dark blue, whereas Jesse's costume was a hybrid with a 20th century design, including red and navy cape, modern cap and a lighter construction to compliment under-clothing that wasn't 10 layers of linen and wool

3. As well as the Yewtown Fire Department

A\N: Well, that was longer than usual, but exposition will do that. Still the next chapter will contain major property damage, so the action factor might increase somewhat.


End file.
